The Alan Balch Column - Future?
According to etymologists, the word “future” only dates to the 1300s.
Human life up to then, I guess, must have been so “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (to copy the philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ description of life outside society), that humanity could scarcely conceive of the very idea of a “future.”
If we could envision the concept of a future, I reason, we would have had a word for it.
This surprises me, since like so many other things it invented, horse racing may itself have started the first intense debates about what “the future” holds: according to the latest Artificial Intelligence, there was gaming on the races as far back as ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Way, way before the 14th century.
You have to understand the concept of “future” if you’re betting on an outcome that hasn’t yet occurred. Our entire sport, one might say, is “future-oriented.” If we knew with certainty what a result would be, we would have no game. And far, far less fun.
Just ask everyone who went against the bridge jumpers who bet the ranch on that 1-9 shot to show . . . which then didn’t.
Or, ask the breeders. They “breed the best to the best and hope for the best,” the aphorism often attributed to John E. Madden. Yes, that family . . . of Hamburg Place in Kentucky.
So, “future-orientation” is the foundation of horse racing in many respects, beginning with breeding. It’s also something I deeply considered in my last school days, and again in my early days of race track marketing at Santa Anita, more than half a century ago.
One of my teachers, Edward Banfield, wrote a controversial book, The Unheavenly City, in which he argued that social class distinctions in human society are not determined by heritable biological traits such as race, or similarities among income, occupations, schooling, or status. Those had been almost universally understood to cause classes among people, and it’s probably still a consensus. Instead, he held, a person’s class is determined by a “psychological orientation toward the future,” that is to say, whether a person is more or less oriented toward the future or the present. The more future-oriented, in his view, the “higher class.”
Gamblers, I found out through research, tend to be “present-oriented.” Tend to live “moment to moment.” And I saw this constantly throughout the race track, whether in the exclusive areas with dress codes for the ultra-wealthy, or on the grandstand main floor at the wire, where the blue-collar crowd congregated. Occupation, race, appearance, and income varied absurdly – the present-oriented bettors want action, now! Immediate gratification.
Banfield believed instead that a person’s relation to time gave them their “class culture,” which in turn then influenced their tastes and behavior.
Thoroughbred breeders are required by laws of nature to be future-oriented (mares requiring almost a year for gestation, added to the time necessary for planning matings); yet breeding is also, by definition, high-risk. Risk abounds everywhere else in racing, too. Isn’t this among the seductive allures and fascinations and contradictions racing provides, like no other sport?
In my track-management decades, the public companies I worked for always confronted the tension between earnings-per-share-this-quarter vs. investing for future growth. We couldn’t escape public disclosure of our audited financials, whether for shareholders or regulators. The discipline this required of California track management, unfortunately, seems to be a thing of the past, over more than the last two decades.
And the result looks increasingly catastrophic.
Every decision that any track management makes has to account for the size of the horse population available to race. This should go without saying -- but in California, it doesn’t! Management can announce the end of racing at a track which undergirds most of a state’s breeding, apparently without understanding or considering the consequences, not only for every other connected enterprise in the state, but also for itself. And without any objective evidence of the basis for its financial decision-making.
And, if it did understand or consider those consequences of its decisions, ponder the implications of having made them anyway.
In the 2025 Santa Anita meet which ended in June, California-breds accounted for just under half of all starts, an all-time high. As of May this year, not coincidentally, horses bred in California were over 51% of the total population stabled in the south, including 60% of the population at Los Alamitos. Every one of those was bred while year-around racing was conducted at Golden Gate Fields and the fairs in Northern California – where over 70% of starters were bred in the state.
As the North American foal crop has steadily declined, according to The Jockey Club Fact Book, the Kentucky share has been rising, to nearly 50% now. The California, Florida, and other shares, for the most part, have been declining precipitously. The implications of this are ominous for the geography of American racing as it has existed for nearly a century.
What the future holds will always be as mysterious as peering out into the vast universe with stark wonder. And all of us in racing know better than the rest of the world, and every investor, that “past performance is not indicative of future results.”
In our own California case, however, past performance has brought us to an exceptionally precarious position.
#Soundbites - How much do the opinions of others affect your yearling evaluations?
Bob Baffert
Bob Baffert
The opinions of others cloud my decisions sometimes. I like to go in it myself, my initial reaction when I look at the horse myself. I base it on what I see in the horse. I try to keep the outside noise out. I’ve made some mistakes by listening to other people sometimes. At the end of the day, I go with what people call is a gut feeling. I call it experience of what worked for me and what didn’t work for me.
Bruce Levine
Everybody’s got an opinion on a yearling. One guy will look at a horse and like him. The next guy - he just doesn’t like him. I do a physical. If the vet doesn’t like him, it’s very rare I’ll go against the vet. If he says it’s a 10 percent risk, that’s something different. Then I’ll let the price determine it. But if he’s telling me, “Stay away,” I’m staying away.
Mike Trombetta
When I’m making yearling selections, truthfully, everybody looks for different things. For me, personally, I like to tune out background noise and try to make my own decisions. Because, at the end of the day, I want to be happy with what I’ve selected and not so much based on what other people have to say.
Al Stall
A lot of people have teams, including myself. If it’s a team member, I’m all ears. Otherwise, I don’t really pay too much attention. We’ve been doing it a long time. We end up agreeing most of the time, and if we don’t agree we just throw it out and move on to the next. It’s us three, me and Frank and Daphne Wooten from Camden, South Carolina. They break our yearlings. We’ve been doing it together for quite a while. We’ve gotten lucky. Lucky is a very important word with yearlings.
Kathleen O’Connell
Everything is useful information. That’s the way I look at it. If you get to the point where you’re considering buying a yearling and a vet is telling you it’s got a problem, you’d want to steer away from it. As far as anything else, you can look it up. I have a high regard for the people that handle the hose, that are around the horse. So they know if it’s a nervous horse or a horse that’s a little more mentally mature. To be honest with you, I value everybody’s opinion, and then you just have to draw your own conclusion.
Brendan Walsh
I think you’ve got to have your opinion on them. I have people I work with, obviously, or if you’re looking for a client, you have to take their opinions on board, too. I mean they do influence you depending on the circumstances, but at the end of the day you have to have your own opinion.
Al Stall
A lot of people have teams, including myself. If it’s a team member, I’m all ears. Otherwise, I don’t really pay too much attention. We’ve been doing it a long time. We end up agreeing most of the time, and if we don’t agree we just throw it out and move on to the next. It’s us three, me and Frank and Daphne Wooten from Camden, South Carolina. They break our yearlings. We’ve been doing it together for quite a while. We’ve gotten lucky. Lucky is a very important word with yearlings.
Mike Stidham
We have certain people we work with, a team of about five of us. We’ve been going to Keeneland for 30 years or more and we’ve had some success there with the budget we have to spend. We’re pretty pleased with what we’ve accomplished over the years, so the opinion of others really doesn’t come into play.
Mark Hennig
If I don’t like the yearling, I don’t buy it. But there’s been times where I like the yearling and someone might point something out to me that makes me take a closer look and veer away from it. We’re always capable of having a second set of eyes or a third set of eyes. I rarely look at a horse by myself. We usually have a team, an agent, my wife and I. In some cases an owner wants to look at them, too. We do miss things.
A Look at Learning Theory for Reducing Stress and Developing Top Performers
Who doesn’t want to produce a performance athlete who is less stressed, experiences fewer setbacks and enjoys improved welfare? It has been shown that correct application of learning theory principles, starting from a young age, can clear the track.
Learning theory explains how each horse acquires, processes, and remembers the knowledge they need to perform as a racehorse. For handlers this means developing a deep understanding of how a horse learns. Naturally gifted horsepersons are already employing some of the principles, often without even knowing it, with their impeccable timing of cues.
In the past two decades, both social licence to operate and equine welfare have come to the forefront. Failing to grasp how the horse’s brain works (both their capabilities and limitations) can lead to confusion, unnecessary stress, and dangerous behaviors. Conversely, understanding equine learning theory can streamline training, lessen the chances of injury to both horse and handler and improve efficiency in training.
How Foal NZ is Using Learning Theory for the Win
Globally recognized for their success training thoroughbred foals, Foal NZ has been achieving remarkable results in New Zealand. Through utilizing learning theory they have completed over 35,000 training sessions without injury for the past two decades. Yearlings fetching million-dollar price tags and Group One race champions such as So You Think, Military Move and Jimmy Choux emerged from the program, earning acclaim in Thoroughbred racing circles.
Learning theory is a way of explaining the different types of training typically used with horses and contains four main quadrants that explain how consequence is used to shape behavior. Sally King of Foal NZ explains how they use learning theory to create confident, capable young athletes.
The Foal NZ team use primarily positive and negative reinforcement to encourage the foals to learn the desired behavior while becoming confident in both their ability to learn and their relationships with people. Using negative reinforcement (removing a cue the horse doesn’t enjoy as soon as the horse responds), the handler will ask the foal to move forward using pressure from a rope around the foal’s rump, releasing the pressure as the foal moves the first foot off the ground.
Once the foal is confident about being touched by people, then they will start to include positive reinforcement (doing something the horse likes) by offering the foal neck scratches once a desired behavior is performed. “This encourages the foal to try to find the solution to what we are asking as they feel relaxed and confident in their abilities – the perfect mental state for accelerated learning,” says King.
Positive punishment (adding something the horse does not like such as vocal or physical reprimand) is less effective than other methods. An example of positive punishment is when a horse rears and ‘shanking’ the horse’s face is employed to punish them. While this may work temporarily as the horse attempts to avoid pain, numerous studies in children have shown that using positive punishment creates anxiety and fear and reduces brain function. Likewise, if the horse is afraid, they are hindered from using their brain to find solutions. Handlers that can recognise stress from facial expressions, muscle tension, and behaviours can pre-empt the rear by changing the situation to reduce tension.
Negative punishment (taking something away that the horse enjoys or values) is generally not recommended as this may cause stress and increase anxiety.
Desensitizing and flooding are two learning concepts that have also been used in training. Desensitizing involves gradually getting the horse accustomed to something, while flooding entails exposing the horse to a frightening stimulus in an intense and unavoidable manner. For instance, a young horse may spook or hesitate at a particular part of the track during their morning workout due to something new or unusual appearing in that area.
If a colt spooks and stops, and the handler was to tie them or hold them so they were forced to stay near what was frightening them, this would be called flooding. Eventually the horse would stop showing the fear behaviours but only because they have learned that nothing they do will make the scary object go away. It is not because the horse now feels comfortable in that area. Flooding can have a compounding effect called ‘trigger stacking’. Initially, the horse may suppress signs of fear, but as stress accumulates and the threshold is crossed, it can lead to sudden, intense reactions or behavioral outbursts.
In contrast, desensitization could involve putting more distance between the horse and the ‘scary’ area at first. They may pass that area alongside another horse to gradually increase comfort with that part of the track, enabling pace to be maintained in future laps. A jockey that can sense his mount starting to hesitate or veer away can use their powers of prediction to desensitize and foster confidence rather than risk escalating stress.
Another well-applied example of learning theory is how trainers typically ‘shape’ responses when introducing horses to the starting gates. Trainers typically break down the elements of being able to use starting gates successfully into multiple parts, gradually going from walking past the gates to walking through open gates following a lead horse, to being beside the lead horse, to stopping inside the open gates, to stopping with one gate closed, then two, then waiting inside, then breaking at a walk and subsequently faster gaits. This way of training called ‘shaping’ also considers the horses ethology in understanding that they are social, prey animals and can feel uncomfortable being restricted in small spaces.
Timing and consistency are arguably the most important tenets of effective training; if the horse can predict what the handler or rider wants and knows they will consistently ask for the behavior in the same way each time, they are much more likely to perform successfully and confidently.
Effective training relies on the simple relationship between the cue, the response and the reinforcement and being able to read stress levels. “In the bloodstock industry, young horses are more likely to be exposed to a wider range of handlers and environments than sport horses but will typically have to perform a smaller range of behaviors than a sport horse,” says King. Thorough training of cues and responses will set the horse up for future success when a wide range of handlers, with varying experience ask the horses to perform behaviours during varying states of arousal.
Using a training system that uses clear principles of learning and lessens the occurrence of conflict behavior, avoidance and escape behaviors has positive outcomes for both horse and human safety and welfare. A young horse that has been trained this way will be more compliant, better able to cope with environmental and social changes and consequently safer. Not only that, but they will feel like they can predict their world, succeed at their job and have some sense of control over what happens to them – all things that increase self-confidence and thus optimize performance.
Within a busy yard, there are time pressures often resulting in limited time to achieve results. Using clear and consistent approaches based on learning theory results in quicker and more robust training, more efficient use of staff time and therefore increased productivity; and for most organizations, improved commercial viability.
Study on Humans Reading Equine Behaviour
This brings us to the next question – How well can you tell? Can a wide range of horse handlers accurately gauge a horse’s behavior as positive, neutral or negative? Dr. Katrina Merkies, a professor in the Department of Animal Biosciences at the Ontario Agricultural College has collaborated on numerous horse behaviour studies and recently published a paper on this very topic.
As it turns out, most of us might not be as perceptive as we think. Merkies’ recent study explored how accurately people can interpret horse-human interactions by looking at photos and watching videos. On average, participants correctly identified whether a situation was positive, negative or neutral only about 52% of the time, which is barely better than chance.
To establish a benchmark, the researchers first had equine behavior specialists evaluate the same media. Their assessments were treated as the gold standard. When the study participants viewed these clips, their interpretations often missed the mark—unless the emotional cues were especially obvious. For instance, people were more likely to recognize a negative scenario when a horse clearly refused to walk across a tarp, or a positive one when a foal willingly approached a person for attention.
These results raise important questions about how well we understand the emotional lives of animals, and how that understanding—or lack thereof—can impact their welfare and how we approach training.
Subtle Signs
While people were somewhat successful at identifying obvious emotional cues in horses, the study revealed a significant gap in recognizing more subtle indicators. According to Dr. Merkies, many of these nuanced signals are found in the horse’s facial expressions. Participants often reported focusing on the horse’s face to gauge their emotional state but frequently overlooked finer details.
Some of the key subtle cues included the direction of the horse’s ears, tension lines around the eyes, and the flaring of nostrils. These small but telling signs can reveal a lot about how a horse is feeling—whether they are anxious, curious, or relaxed. Unfortunately, these indicators are not always easy to spot, especially for those without specialized training in equine behavior.
Improving our ability to recognize these subtle cues could raise the bar for increasing positive human-animal interactions and improving the chances of early intervention at the first sign of physical issues.
Does Self-Awareness Help Us Understand Horses?
One of the central questions of the study was whether people who are more in tune with their own bodily sensations—such as heartbeat, breathing, or muscle tension—are also better at interpreting the emotional states of horses. This idea stems from human psychology research, which shows that individuals with greater internal awareness, or interoception, tend to be more empathetic toward others.
To explore this in the context of human-horse interactions, the researchers used a validated tool called the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA-2). This questionnaire measures how aware people are of their internal bodily states across eight dimensions, including emotional awareness, attention regulation, and body listening. Participants rated themselves on a scale from 0 (not at all) to 5 (very much) for each item.
Participants were asked to evaluate the various horse-human interaction clips before the MAIA-2 results were recorded to avoid skewing the results. Surprisingly, the results showed no significant correlation between a person’s interoceptive awareness and their ability to accurately assess the horse’s emotional state.
This unexpected outcome raises several possibilities. It could mean that interoceptive awareness simply doesn’t translate across species, or that the MAIA-2 isn’t the right tool for this kind of cross-species empathy. Another possibility is that the participants—many of whom were highly experienced with horses—relied more on their practical knowledge than on emotional intuition when evaluating the clips.
Learning to See What Horses Are Telling Us
The study highlights a clear need for improvement in how people perceive and interpret subtle equine behaviors. So how can we get better at this? According to Dr. Merkies, education is the obvious starting point—but it’s not the whole solution. “We can learn about these cues,” Merkies explains, “but being able to apply that knowledge in real-life situations is a different challenge.”
One promising approach is the use of tools like the Horse Grimace Scale which can help observers assess facial expressions and other subtle signs of discomfort. These tools are gaining traction in professional settings; for example, the Hamilton Mounted Police unit uses facial grimace scoring as part of their daily horse care routine. Incorporating such practices into everyday horse management can train people to notice and interpret the finer details of equine behavior.
Dr. Merkies emphasizes the importance of shifting our perspective: “We need to stop, listen, and pay attention—not from an anthropomorphic viewpoint, but by trying to understand how the horse is experiencing the situation.” This means resisting the urge to project human emotions onto horses and instead learning to see the world through their eyes.
Challenging Industry Norms
Another barrier to better understanding horses is the normalization of certain behaviors within the equine industry. “There are a lot of myths that get passed down and accepted as just the way things are,” says Dr. Merkies. Take, for example, a horse pinning their ears when the girth is tightened. This is often dismissed as the horse being a grouch or even 'normal' behaviour for that horse, but this mindset can prevent us from asking deeper questions: Why is the horse reacting this way? What are they trying to communicate? Is there a physical reason for this reaction.
Another great example of negative feedback, often ignored or normalized, is a horse that displays discomfort while being groomed by constant fidgeting, head tossing or grimacing. Again, the discomfort should be acknowledged and addressed, perhaps with softer brushes or counter-condition using positive reinforcement. Is there a physical issue that requires veterinary intervention?
By challenging long-held assumptions and encouraging critical thinking, the equine community can move toward more benevolent and informed interactions with horses.
Positive Reinforcement - Building Better Bonds
One of the most promising ways to improve horse training and welfare is through the use of positive reinforcement—a method that rewards desired behaviors to encourage their repetition. Dr. Merkies emphasizes that this approach not only works but often leads to better outcomes than traditional methods that rely on punishment or pressure.
Despite its effectiveness, positive reinforcement is sometimes misunderstood. Common myths suggest it might make horses ‘mouthy’ or lead to weight gain from treat overuse. Others argue it’s unnecessary because a horse should obey out of affection or loyalty. These misconceptions can discourage people from adopting more compassionate and effective training techniques.
Positive reinforcement doesn’t have to be complicated—or even food-based. While treats are a common and convenient reward, other reinforcers can include scratches, companionship, or access to a favorite location. The key is understanding what motivates your individual horse.
Dr. Merkies offers a simple but powerful example: “When you go to halter your horse, do they come to you, ignore you, or turn away?” These responses are forms of feedback. Even subtle behaviors—like a horse turning its head slightly away when approached—can signal discomfort or reluctance.
Recognizing and responding to these cues can transform training into a more cooperative and enjoyable experience for both horse and handler.
Ultimately, positive reinforcement fosters a relationship built on trust and mutual respect. “It’s super satisfying,” says Dr. Merkies, “when they come running up to the gate or whinny from the field. Then I know they’re looking forward to the training session.”
The benefits of a horse experiencing more positive interactions with humans than negative ones are obvious from a welfare and safety standpoint. When a horse is repeatedly exposed to negative interactions with humans, they may develop fear or resistance, which can make handling more challenging and increase the risk of injury for both the horse and the handler. If you are looking for ways to use more carrot and less stick to reduce stress and setbacks, consider applying the principles of learning theory to your horse training program.
2025 Gerald Leigh Memorial lectures where we learn about the latest research in laryngeal surgeries and tendon rehabilitation
The seventh renewal of the Gerald Leigh Memorial Lectures, in association with Beaufort Cottage Educational Trust took place at Tattersalls in Newmarket, England on June 4th.
The Gerald Leigh Charitable Trust was established in 1974, set up in memory of Gerald Leigh, a prominent owner breeder and best known for breeding the highly successful Barathea and Markofdistinction.
His legacy lives on through the trust, which not only reflects his remarkable achievements and lasting influence in the world of Thoroughbred breeding and racing, but also continues his deep passion for scientific advancement and the welfare of horses—both within the racing industry and the wider equine community. The trust stands as a testament to Gerald Leigh’s enduring commitment to excellence, care, and innovation in all aspects of equine life.
Wind ops- the decision making and diagnostics
Tim Barnett MRCVS of Rossdales Veterinary Surgeons, delivered two informative and interesting lectures on wind ops and the decision making and diagnostics relating to them. As we all know, wind surgery addresses upper airway conditions in horses that impair breathing and performance. Key anatomical structures involved include the arytenoid cartilage, vocal folds, epiglottis, and soft palate. Common issues include vocal fold collapse, often causing a whistling noise and linked to progressive recurrent laryngeal neuropathy “roaring”, which severely obstructs airflow. Another frequent problem is dorsal displacement of the soft palate (DDSP), where the soft palate flips over the epiglottis, blocking airflow and causing sudden loss of performance.
Palatal instability often precedes DDSP. Other conditions include medial deviation of the aryepiglottic folds, nasopharyngeal collapse, epiglottic entrapment, and ventral luxation of the arytenoid apex (VLAC). These disorders vary in severity and may be progressive or multifactorial. Barnett clarifies that although surgical interventions target these conditions, outcomes depend on the specific disorder and severity.
Upper airway conditions remain a major cause of poor performance in racehorses, with many requiring multiple surgical interventions. Accurate diagnosis, particularly via exercising endoscopy, is key, as many disorders only become apparent during physical exercise.
Tieback (prosthetic laryngoplasty) is the most common wind surgery but carries risks such as aspiration, pneumonia and swallowing dysfunction, despite efforts to improve surgical techniques. Newer techniques, like standing tiebacks and improved implants (e.g., titanium buttons, reinforced screws), aim to reduce complications and enhance results.
Other surgeries like Hobday (vocal fold removal via laser) were also discussed, emphasizing the delicate nature of airway surgeries and the ongoing challenge to balance treatment effectiveness against risks and complications in our racehorses.
For DDSP, tie-forward surgery, which mimics natural muscle action to restore laryngeal position, has shown positive results, while thermocautery remains controversial. Epiglottic entrapment can now be safely corrected in standing horses using lasers or scissors. Emerging therapies include laryngeal reinnervation and dynamic neuroprosthesis to restore muscle function, as well as vocal fold filling to reduce aspiration pressure.
Collagen cross-linking is also under investigation as a less invasive method for soft palate stiffening. Barnett concludes, precise diagnosis and tailored interventions are crucial for optimal results in treating upper airway disorders in racehorses. These advances reflect a growing push for safer, more effective airway interventions in the racehorse.
Barnett then moved onto discussing the critical role of exercise endoscopy in diagnosing upper airway dysfunction in Thoroughbreds, highlighting the limitations of resting endoscopy. While useful for detecting conditions like total RLN, epiglottic entrapment, or arytenoid chondritis, resting scopes often miss dynamic issues such as soft palate disorders and vocal fold collapse.
Recent developments in overground endoscopy which are battery-powered and rider-compatible, allow evaluation during real time exercise, providing accurate and practical diagnosis. This method has become the preferred standard, especially for assessing palatal instability and early RLN.
Clinical signs such as respiratory noise, poor performance, or sudden stops may indicate airway dysfunction, but accurate diagnosis requires proper exercise testing with horses cantering or galloping while synchronizing breaths per stride. Additional tools like laryngeal ultrasonography aid diagnosis and planning of treatment.
Barnett cautioned against performing airway surgery without thorough diagnostics, as multiple simultaneous conditions can exist, and treatments must be carefully targeted to improve outcomes. Around 25% of Thoroughbreds show clinical RLN, reinforcing the need for tailored, evidence-based treatment plans to support both welfare and performance.
Laryngeal surgeries - the evolution of research and engineering of the tie back and nerve graft
Dr Fabrice Rossignol, of Grosbois/Chantilly Equine Clinic discussed laryngeal surgeries, focussing on the evolution of research and engineering of the tie back and nerve graft. Rossignol’s specialist clinic is at the forefront of treating recurrent laryngeal neuropathy (RLN).
The condition is often linked to degeneration of the recurrent laryngeal nerve, affecting the cricoarytenoideus dorsalis (CAD) muscle, which is critical for opening the airway during exercise. Rossignol explains that this muscle contains few fatigue-resistant fibers, making it vulnerable to atrophy. Even minor narrowing of the airway significantly increases resistance, due to the exponential pressure effects described by Poiseuille’s law.
Diagnosis involves treadmill endoscopy and ultrasonography (caudal view of swallowing can be particularly useful) to assess dynamic airway collapse and muscle atrophy. Treatment is tailored to severity; advanced cases may require a tieback (laryngoplasty) using synthetic prostheses to partially open the arytenoid cartilage, though this risks complications like coughing. Newer techniques aim to restore function rather than replace it. One such innovation combines traditional tieback surgery with nerve grafting from the spinal accessory nerve, which activates during inspiration and contains fatigue-resistant fibers.
This hybrid approach improves airway opening and reduces side effects. Standing surgery under sedation allows more precise suture placement, minimizing anesthetic risk. Emerging technologies like 3D-printed implants and titanium screw anchors further enhance outcomes. Rossignol echoes Barnett’s earlier advice, that early intervention and careful case selection remain key to success.
Dr Rossignol continued on to discuss what and how we, as a racing industry, can learn from other disciplines.
Recent research in trotters and sport horses highlights how neck flexion contributes to dorsal and lateral pharyngeal collapse, likely due to nerve inflammation affecting muscles such as the stylopharyngeus. Nasal obstruction, including alar fold collapse and nasal muscle paralysis, also play a role in compromised airflow. Treatment options now include alar fold resection, nasal fenestration (widening), and innovative approaches like titanium mesh implants to replace lost muscular function.
Dr Rossignol explains that high-speed treadmill testing has proven critical in diagnosing dynamic airway conditions, while a multidisciplinary approach involving vets, trainers and farriers enhances management strategies. Use of nasal dilation devices, such as nasal strips, remains restricted under many jurisdictions' rules of racing.
It is clear that Rossignol champions cross-disciplinary learning, working with trotter trainers over decades has yielded practical insights, such as shoe removal to enhance performance. The methodical, detail-driven tack and equipment adjustments made in trotting disciplines provide valuable lessons in optimizing performance.
Dr Rossignol also shares advances in surgical techniques, including refined approaches to epiglottic entrapment, emphasizing the importance of collaborative care. Cross-disciplinary exchange continues to inform diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation, enriching equine sports medicine and improving outcomes across disciplines.
An update on wind surgeries: what's new?
To conclude the lectures on wind ops, Mark Johnston, Dr Rossignol and Tim Barnett took to the floor to field audience questions. The discussion focused on recurrent laryngeal hemiplegia (RLN) in horses, highlighting its probable hereditary component but unclear linking between particular genes. Experts note the complexity of breeding influences and caution against oversimplifying genetic causes, as RLN will most likely be linked with other traits.
Surgery helps individual horses but may skew breeding populations, as generally only the more expensive stallions receive treatment. Disclosure of surgeries before breeding is debated but difficult to enforce. Non-surgical solutions like resistance masks are emerging but their impact on reducing surgery isn’t yet clear. Overall, understanding and managing RLN’s genetics and treatment remain challenging and unresolved.
Early diagnosis of recurrent RLN relies on ultrasonography to detect early muscle atrophy; surgery is recommended promptly to prevent irreversible damage. In contrast, dorsal displacement of the soft palate (DDSP) often stems from muscle fatigue, immaturity, or inflammation and is best treated medically with training and reinforcement until at least three years old. Surgery is a last resort if medical management fails.
Multiple surgeries can be ethical if done safely and explained clearly. Yearling wind testing is variable and challenging to interpret, complicating sales disclosures. The increase in buyers scoping foals’ pre-sale is seen as an invaluable and unpleasant practice due to solid evidence that a foal’s laryngeal physiology will and can change tremendously as they mature. Ongoing research explores novel therapies such as pacemakers and magnetic stimulation.
The practical management of tendon rehabilitation
There is no introduction needed for Mark Johnston, who kindly provided us with his insight on the practical management of tendon rehabilitation. A renowned trainer with decades of experience offered a pragmatic view on tendon injury rehabilitation in racehorses, challenging long-held optimism around recovery. Despite advancements in ultrasound imaging and a range of therapies, from anti-inflammatories to experimental interventions like carbon fiber implants, he is yet to witness a truly successful long-term return to peak performance in top-level racing following a diagnosed tendon injury.
While ultrasound provides valuable detail, he still relies most on visual and tactile assessment, particularly tendon profile and signs of ‘bowing,’ which he considers a critical turning point. In his experience, few flat horses make a full comeback; many may race again, but recurrent issues and shortened careers are the norm. Mark’s approach is rooted in realism: throw everything anti-inflammatory at the injury early, manage workload carefully, and temper expectations.
Long rest alone is rarely effective and controlled rehab and early, aggressive treatment are key. He notes that previous use of prophylactic anti-inflammatories post-race helped reduce injuries, and questions whether restrictions on racecourse treatments may hinder progress. Prevention, early detection, and practical management remain the trainer’s most reliable tools.
Tendon injuries in racehorses
Professor Roger K.W. Smith FRCVS presented a detailed lecture on tendon injuries in racehorses, focusing on the superficial digital flexor tendon (SDFT) and the role of science in improving prevention and rehabilitation strategies. As a key structure for locomotion, the SDFT functions as an energy-storing spring but operates near its mechanical limits, especially in Thoroughbreds, making it prone to injury from accumulated loading rather than acute trauma.
Research shows that degeneration often precedes clinical injury, particularly within the interfascicular matrix (IFM), which loses elasticity with age and training. Tendon cells also become less responsive with age, impairing repair. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are implicated in post-exercise matrix degradation, further weakening the tendon.
Professor Smith emphasized prevention through training adjustments: avoiding hard ground, spacing out intense work, and ensuring sufficient recovery of, ideally 72 hours. Early detection is critical. Diagnostic tools such as ultrasound, Doppler, and Ultrasound Tissue Characterization (UTC) can identify structural changes before injury becomes apparent.
When injury occurs, a prolonged, structured rehabilitation program guided by regular imaging is essential. Biologic therapies like mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) are showing encouraging results, improving tendon structure and reducing re-injury rates. A personalized, biologically informed approach remains key to safeguarding tendon health in racehorses.
Tendinopathy - its causes, treatments and parallels between equine and human medicine
Lt. Col. Dr Tom Clack delivered a comprehensive lecture on tendinopathy, highlighting its causes, treatments, and parallels between equine and human medicine. Tendinopathy, a chronic overuse injury, follows a three-stage progression: reactive tendinopathy (early inflammation), tendon disrepair (structural change and neovascularization), and degenerative tendinopathy (reduced symptoms but increased rupture risk).
Historically, eccentric loading exercises, which came about via human Achilles research, became the core treatment. Today, management is more tailored, focusing on biomechanics, load control, and personalized rehabilitation.
Diagnosis includes clinical evaluation and ultrasound, with advanced modalities like Shearwave elastography and UTC offering deeper insights into tendon integrity and healing.
Dr Clack advocated a multimodal treatment strategy: progressive loading, extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT), and injectables such as corticosteroids (for short-term relief) and PRP, which supports healing through growth factors.
Crucially, he emphasised the value of Thoroughbred racehorses as models for human tendon injury. Their tendons endure similar high loads, and developments in imaging, PRP, and regenerative therapies in equine medicine are increasingly influencing human sports injury treatment.
Dr Clack echoed the importance of early detection, strategic recovery protocols, and ongoing collaboration between human and veterinary medicine to improve long-term outcomes in equine athletes.
Rehabilitating the equine athlete
We were then treated to a lecture by Veterinary surgeon Amelia MacArthur, who provided a grounded and insightful view on equine rehabilitation, shaped by her hands-on experience running a specialist rehabilitation yard in North Yorkshire, England. Based at the former training yard of the Cheltenham Gold Cup winning trainer, Peter Beaumont, her facility includes a water treadmill, deep sand gallop, extensive hacking, and a quiet stable environment, all tailored to support recovery and performance conditioning.
It is clear that MacArthur advocates for a genuinely holistic approach, not rooted in fads, but in understanding the whole horse: injury history, temperament, conformation, previous management, and future athletic goals. Rehabilitation begins with controlled exercise, which is often hand-walking, though she acknowledges the safety challenges of managing fresh horses, advising use of protective gear and sedation when necessary. In-stable physiotherapy, such as weight-shifts and limb lifts, can supplement or replace walking early on.
She stresses that rehabilitation literature often lacks clarity, so individualized programs with regular reassessment, particularly ultrasound checks, are essential. Progressive loading, surface variation, and adapting treadmill use depending on injury type all help prevent reinjury. For tendon cases, treadmill work is delayed to avoid strain from reduced slip.
Crucially, MacArthur highlighted the impact of rider weight and balance, particularly for ex-racehorses, and the importance of body condition in supporting soundness. A striking case study showed how fat loss transformed a Highland pony’s tendon recovery and competitive ability.
Tendon injury; therapy and management
The final open floor discussion of the day took place between Mark Johnston, Professor Roger Smith, Dr Tom Clack and Amelia MacArthur. The topic of military-style training programs running parallel with equine management were discussed, particularly in managing overuse injuries like stress fractures. Key strategies include load management and gradual conditioning over 4–8 week cycles. It was noted that today’s horses, like modern human recruits, can often lack natural conditioning, especially in the feet, increasing injury risk.
Prevention is focused on structured training that supports both tendon and bone development, particularly in young horses (yearlings), where tendons must adapt before bones are heavily loaded. Ground conditions and surface variation also play a complex role in musculoskeletal health.
Rehabilitation and pre-training approaches remain debated, but there's agreement that progressive, controlled exercise is essential. Tendon injuries, especially in flat racehorses, are notoriously hard to overcome. Advances in ultrasound and imaging, such as UTC and shockwave elastography offer new promise, though they come with high costs and technical demands.
Steeplechase horses often return to competition successfully after injury, offering hope, but managing owner expectations remains key. Medication use, such as dexamethasone, is tightly regulated on racecourses to uphold integrity. Like elite human athletes, horses need carefully balanced workloads and rest to prevent chronic damage. While rehabilitation methods are improving, prevention remains the best strategy.
This year’s renewal of the Gerald Leigh Memorial Lectures was once again full to the brim with exciting new research and innovative thoughts from world leading experts. Attendees, all involved within various areas of the horseracing industry made for diverse and thought-provoking discussions.
The commonality amongst the lecturers and attendees alike was the undeniable commitment to ensuring the betterment of equine welfare in all avenues of bloodstock, racing and life after. Safe to say, all who attended are already looking forward to the 2026 lectures.
Tangible improvements to equine safety and welfare to reduce the prevalence of both EASD incidents and severe musculoskeletal conditions
In racehorses, exercise-associated sudden death – or EASD – is a very rare event but it can happen and this article is written to highlight a need for better understanding of why it happens as well as motivating vets, researchers and horsemen to do more to prevent it.
In June 2024, Woodbine Racecourse, Toronto hosted the International Horseracing Federation’s (IFHA) Global Summit on Equine Safety and Technology where EASD was one of two major workshop topics. This international event was sponsored by Cornell University’s Harry M. Zweig Memorial Fund for Equine Research, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Equine Welfare Research Foundation, and Woodbine Entertainment Group and specialist veterinary clinicians, pathologists and researchers spent two days sharing knowledge and ideas and debating how tangible improvements to equine safety and welfare in racing could be made towards reducing the prevalence of both EASD incidents and severe musculoskeletal conditions.
What is EASD?
The term EASD is used to describe a fatal collapse in a previously healthy horse, either during or shortly after exercise. Currently, across the world, different time-windows are used by regulators which makes quantification of the problem challenging. A benchmark definition is needed so that the occurrence rates can be audited and the EASD workshop team advised that an international definition be adopted to define EASD as within approximately one hour after exercise. Figures from the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) show that in Great Britain , the 2024 EASD incident rate was 0.04% or 4 horses per 10,000 starts. The British rate is comparable with other nations such as Australia and a little lower than the USA although the different definitions used in different racing jurisdictions make direct comparisons challenging.
Four broad EASD categories
The most authoritative international study looking at causes of EASD was performed with the British Horserace Betting Levy Board supported by a group in the University of Edinburgh’s Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies. This report showed that determination of cause of death is significantly impacted by individual pathologist’s interpretation of findings, however, in broad terms about a quarter of cases EASD have a clear and definitive diagnosis of cardiopulmonary failure and a further 10-15% have necropsy findings which are strongly suspicious of cardiac or pulmonary failure; around 10% of EASD cases are due hemorrhagic shock brought on by rupture of a major blood vessel which is most commonly within the abdomen, while unfortunately around 20% of cases are unexplained despite detailed examination. A range of other rare conditions including brain and spinal problems, often relating to trauma, account for the remainder.
Within the cardiopulmonary failure category, it is generally accepted that the majority relate to cardiac arrest. This means that the cardiac rhythm is disrupted but, in fact it is actually very difficult to prove that a cardiac rhythm disturbance has been the trigger mechanism of death during a post-mortem examination. In the June 2024 IFHA summit, a significant amount of the workshop was dedicated to discussing current knowledge of cardiac rhythm disturbances, why they occur and how they might be detected in the future.
Cardiac arrest: a “perfect storm”
Cardiac arrest can be likened to a perfect storm where multiple adverse factors combine with devastating impact. Unlike catastrophic bone fractures or tendon injuries, cardiac arrest does not necessarily relate to an accumulating pathway of built-up microdamage and because of this, it is very difficult to predict cardiac arrest might occur. For a cardiac rhythm disturbance (aka an arrhythmia) to develop three elements are required: a substrate, triggers and, in some cases, one or more modulators. A substrate refers to the structure of the heart, this can be an area of scar tissue but the heart structure does not necessarily need to be pathological and the changes in muscle content which arise as a result of athletic training may also be a substrate.
A trigger reflects a change in the cellular and tissue environment such as alteration in concentrations of different electrolytes or development of low oxygen concentrations in the tissues yet changes in electrolytes and lowering oxygen concentrations occur every time a horse gallops. Modulators are an electrophysiological characteristic of the heart which might be a permanent feature of an individual’s cell make-up or more often might be a transient state such as a variation in the nervous system brought on by excitement, stress or perhaps pain.
The key point is all these independent factors have to combine to precipitate a cardiac arrest – indeed a horse might go through its life uneventfully despite the presence of a particular substrate or it may experience these triggers on a daily basis and come to no harm. It is the coalescing of multiple factors at a given moment that precipitates the rhythm disturbance that leads to cardiac arrest.
EASD at the molecular level
Arguably the biggest challenge we currently face in this arena is lack of knowledge of what is normal in the exercising horse. There is very little understanding of structural and electrical remodelling of the equine heart in response to exercise. We do know that the heart, just like any other muscle, will increase in size in response to training and we also know that in horses competing over longer distances such as steeplechasers, a big heart confers an athletic advantage. Exercise training can also lead to scar-tissue formation but in both human and equine athletes the importance of this pathology is uncertain. There is some evidence that fit horses also have altered cardiac electrical characteristics but again, knowledge in this field is very sparse.
Electrical activity in the heart muscle cells is controlled by ion channels – these are proteins that are sited within the cell membranes which effectively act as gates opening and closing to allow electrolytes such as sodium, potassium and calcium to move in and out of the cell and in doing so the electrolytes carry the electrical current.
Channelopathies – or abnormalities in these ion channels - have an important role in the development of rhythm disturbances but right now, research on equine ion channels has been limited…but that is changing rapidly. Researchers in Great Britain, Copenhagen and various US universities are working to understand equine channels and the genetic and acquired factors that determine how they function. As knowledge accumulates it may be possible to include tests for the molecular make -up of an affected individual in post-mortem exams – the so-called “molecular autopsy” which is improving diagnosis rates in human cardiac arrest suffers.
So far equine studies have not found conclusive evidence of genetic mutations associated with EASD. But there is evidence for heritability in the Thoroughbred: observations from Australia which have shown some stallions’ and at least one mare’s progeny have higher rates of EASD associations suggesting that it is likely that there are genetic elements at play in EASD. One of the key recommendations of the IFHA’s EASD workshop was that tissues from both horses impacted by EASD and those dying of other causes should be banked and shared amongst researchers to underpin and promote research studies in this area.
ECG is the cornerstone of arrhythmia diagnosis
Currently vets rely on resting and exercising electrocardiograms (ECG’s) to identify horses with arrhythmias. However, there are a number of limitations to using ECG as a screening and diagnostic tool:
ECGs can be technically difficult to perform during exercise as they are affected by motion artefact; leading to reduced quality of the trace.
ECGs currently must be manually interpreted, which is time consuming and leads to significant intra- and inter-observer variability.
There are no universal guidelines on how to perform the ECG; i.e. exactly where to place the electrodes, which affects the trace produced.
There is no consensus on interpretation of the results of an ECG examination in terms of the clinical significance of any abnormalities detected and whether the clinical presentation impacts criteria for interpretation. Indeed, we need to understand more about what is ‘normal’, before we can identify horses with an ‘abnormal’ trace.
Will wearables change the diagnostic landscape?
Over recent years, increasingly racehorse trainers have been using wearable devices during routine training. Generally, the trainer’s motivation is to collect data on speed and fitness variables in their horses to refine their training programs but several of these devices also have the capacity to include an ECG trace. The ECG can then be accessed if the horse has a problem during a training session and, usefully, the horse’s past record can also often be interrogated. The large numbers of recordings that are currently being made represents an untapped resource for collecting ECG information from large numbers of horses to better understand cardiac responses during exercise in both healthy and unhealthy individuals.
It has been known for some time that healthy horses frequently have mild rhythm irregularities – generally described as premature complexes or premature depolarizations – these minor fluctuations in rhythm occur at all phases of exercise and particularly as their heart rate is slowing rapidly at the end of a gallop. But the dividing line between what is normal variation and what is clinically concerning is not clear-cut. We do not know exactly how much beat-to-beat variation can be classed as normal versus a sign of significant arrhythmia and we have little understanding of the relationship between premature depolarizations and other factors such as stress, exercise intensity, medical interventions and adverse clinical events.
As a result, veterinary clinicians are looking forward to the ongoing expansion of wearables as an exciting new window into equine cardiac function. Yet, the scale of the unexplored data collection currently going on in training brings with it a challenge – with so many ECG traces being rapidly collected, how can we address the mammoth task of actually looking at them? Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing many aspects of modern life, including medical diagnosis. There is an urgent need to develop AI systems which can screen training ECGs to identify those that warrant further attention. And, although a large number of wearable devices are available on the commercial market, these products often lack validation which is needed before we can use the data they collect to make clinical decisions on individual animals and use the data as a research resource.
Could we deal with EASD cases better when they do occur?
Racetrack arrhythmia/collapse are, in reality, low probability but high impact events which can be difficult to manage due to their traumatic nature and the fact that they are often played out in the public eye. This is compounded by the availability of medical equipment and limited treatment options that may be futile.
However, when these events do unfortunately occur, they represent a golden opportunity to collect diagnostic information and biological samples which could be used to prevent future EASD events in other horses in the future. The combination of an ECG history, a video of the horse as it suffers the event, information from necropsy if the horse dies, and tissue banking offers valuable research insights.
The nearest parallel event from human sport is the cardiac arrests which are occasionally seen in footballers. Through the effort of football’s regulators, today pitch-side emergency medical facilities are excellent and large numbers of trained staff are in attendance, all leading to the best possible outcomes for sportsmen when medical problems arise. When looking to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation and treatment attempts in the collapsed horse, the animals’ size is a major challenge; human defibrillators simply do not work in large animals.
We need more information on emergency medications that can be used in the presence of arrhythmias of unknown origin. These drugs need to be quick to administer, available and suitable to be carried by a racecourse vet, safe, effective and affordable. The IFHA’s EASD group identified that in pressurized situations, pre-determined protocol approaches to both emergency treatment and necropsy procedures are invaluable and the group is working to develop these protocols for dissemination across racing jurisdictions.
Will EASD risk always be present?
As EASD is such a rare event, it is impossible to believe that the risk of EASD can ever be removed entirely, but given the recent technological development in both veterinary science and wearables for training, there is reason to be optimistic that in the coming years, we will at last be able to improve diagnosis rates, identify some of the contributing risk factors and even potentially provide more effective emergency treatment options for these unusual but tragic episodes in our horses.
Gabriel “Spider” and Aisling Duignan with Echo Sound
An owner’s thrill winning a graded stakes is even greater when that horse is a home-bred. And if there’s a special bond between horse and owner, so much the better.
Gabriel “Spider” Duignan, who usually doesn’t keep the fillies and colts he breeds, knows that feeling. When Echo Sound, a daughter by Echo Town out of Eagle Sound by Fusaichi Pegasus, who was co-bred by Vision TBs and Bruce and Patricia Pieratt, captured the Gr.3 Miss Preakness Stakes at Pimlico May 16th, Duignan and his wife Aisling had completed a personal vow.
“What makes her special was her mother was very special to us and very good to us and a great producer,” Duignan said. “I think she was the first mare we bought together. She was getting older, and she hemorrhaged and died shortly after birth, a couple hours after giving birth. That’s never nice to watch, but it happens. That was her first filly. She’s a home-bred. From that standpoint, it makes her a little special. We vowed that we’d keep Echo Sound.”
They’ve never regretted that decision.
Echo Sound was born on the Duignan’s 300-acre Springhouse Farm near Lexington, not far from Ashford Stud, where Aisling works as the Director of Bloodstock. They own half of the 100 Thoroughbreds living there. The other half belongs to their clients.
The Duignans purchased Eagle Sound for $70,000. Before Echo Sound, she had produced eight winners. She was 19 when she foaled Echo Sound.
Echo Sound has won five of her six starts and made over $450,000 under the care of trainer Rusty Arnold. Her last race was a 4 ¼ length romp at Saratoga in the G. 3 Victory Ride Stakes at Saratoga July 3rd. That was sweet for Arnold, who trained Victory Ride: “It’s a really good thing to run in a race named after one of your horses. Not many people get to do that. So it’s fun.” Duignan said simply, “Today was her best race.”
Echo Sound is the first horse Arnold has trained for Duignan: “I have known Spider for a long time through the sales and being around Keeneland. I hadn’t trained for Spider. About a year ago, when the filly went to Florida to be broken, he approached me and said, `Hey, I’ve got a filly we’re going to put in training and I’d like to give you this filly.’ I said, `I’d love to have her.’”
He’s been smiling ever since: “As owners, they’re the greatest. He said, `My deal is I send you the horse and you drive the car and just tell us how she’s doing and where we want to go and what you want to, and we’re on board.’ He said this was his mare’s last foal and he wanted to replace the mare with her.
“They’re horse people, he and his wife. They’re wonderful people.”
They have made a substantial impact in Thoroughbred racing ever since Duignan emigrated from Ireland to America with a plan he never followed four decades ago.
“I’ve been lucky. I’ve definitely been lucky,” Duignan said. “I was just one of those kids born with a love of horses. I started out with ponies. I realized I couldn’t make it as a rider.”
He took a job at Airlie Stud, succeeding a worker nicknamed Spider. When his boss at Airlie struggled to pronounce Duignan’s name, he gave him the same nickname. It’s stuck for the rest of his life.
At Airlie, Duignan met the veterinarian, John Hughes, who took a personal interest in him and arranged a job for him across the Atlantic: “John Hughes sent me to America to Bill O’Neill at Circle O Farm. I’ll be forever indebted to John Hughes. That was my first trip to America. At 21, you have a different view. You’re looking to explore. My plan was to do a year here in America and a year in Australia and then back home. But I loved Kentucky. I never went to Australia.”
In America, Duignan hooked up with another Irishman, Pat Costello, who had preceded him to America by six months. Costello also worked at Circle O and they became close friends and partners, originally participating in a partnership called The Lads. In 2001, they co-founded Paramount Sales. “Pat and I started Paramount Sales and that was great,” Duignan said. “We’ve never had any differences. I’ve always been lucky to have great partners.”
Duignan, who also hooked up with David Garvin at Ironwood Farm and Dr. Tony Lyons of Castleton Farm, credits both of them for his success.
In the spring of 2022, the Duignans were honored to return to Ireland to accept the Wild Geese Award from the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association, made to “compatriots who fly the tricolour in exemplary fashion on foreign fields.” Duignan said, “That was a nice award from my peers. It meant a lot to me.”
Horses still do: “I enjoy getting a good horse and selling a good horse. I still love the whole process.”
Lael Stables with She Feels Pretty
Nineteen years removed from the triumph and tragedy of their Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, Roy and Gretchen Jackson are still winning major stakes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Their outstanding turf filly She Feels Pretty won her fourth consecutive graded stakes, taking the G.1 New York Stakes at Saratoga June 6th. “We’re still kicking,” Jackson laughed. “At our age, 88, we’re sure enjoying it. We’re just lucky to have this horse.”
Their horses have been lucky to be owned by the Jacksons.
“I was a big fan of theirs since Barbaro,” She Feels Pretty’s trainer Cherie DeVaux said. “You see them go through the highs and lows and they handled that with such grace. It’s really special to have a relationship with them.”
There are few breeders and owners who have raced so many top horses in North America and Europe, including the unbelievable feat of Barbaro winning the Gr.1 Kentucky Derby and George Washington winning the Gp.1 2000 Guineas on the same afternoon, May 6th, 2006. “They’ve both been wonderful experiences,” Jackson said. “We’ve been pretty lucky in the whole situation. You don’t know if they’re going to stay healthy. It’s such a gamble. We just sort of plodded along through the years just trying to have some fun.”
They sure know how to plod along. She Feels Pretty has already given the Jacksons their 14th season with more than one million dollars in earnings and their 18th over $900,000. Their horses have won 495 races from 2,511 starts with earnings topping $32.4 million. And, of course, they were the Eclipse Award Outstanding Owners of 2006.
Being able to share this success together cannot be underemphasized. “It’s been great,” Jackson said. “She’s the one. She was involved at a young age riding.”
They grew up just 10 miles apart in Pennsylvania. Gretchen was a foxhunter, a pastime of Roy’s mother, who also dabbled in racehorses.
Roy spent six years as a stockbroker before following his passion for baseball, owning a couple minor league teams and co-founding Convest, a management firm for professional athletes. He sold his share in the company to concentrate on horse racing.
By then, Lael Farm was up and running successfully. The Jacksons purchased the 190-acre property in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1978 and named it Lael, the Gaelic word for loyalty.
They backed up their loyalty by taking care of all their horses when they were done racing. For years, Barbaro’s dam, 25-year-old La Ville Rouge, who earned more than $250,000 with six victories from 25 starts for Hall of Fame trainer Phil Johnson, shared her paddock with Superstar Leo, the first horse the Jacksons purchased in Europe, and $400,000-plus graded stakes winner Belle Cherie, also trained by Johnson.
In five consecutive starts, Superstar Leo won the Gp.3 Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot, a restricted race for sales graduates, finished second in the Gp.1 Phoenix, won the Gp.2 Flying Childers and finished second in the Gp.1 Prix de ’Abbaye de Longchamp. She finished her career with five victories and four seconds from 13 starts, earning $284,001.
From 15 foals, she produced 11 winners, including Enticing, a dual Gp.3 winner and the dam of three-time Gp.1 Prix de la Forest winner and $1.2 million earner One Master, who had seven victories from 23 starts.
After Superstar Leo died on Lael Farm at the age of 26 on June 26th, 2024, Jackson said, “We were very lucky to purchase her after my wife Gretchen happened to see her run. We brought her over from England after she was through having foals to live out her life at our place.”
That’s a destination Barbaro never reached.
Barbaro was brilliantly trained and managed by legendary equestrian Michael Matz, a six-time U.S. national champion who was given the honor of carrying the U.S. flag at the 1996 Olympics Closing Ceremony. Seven years earlier, on United Airlines Flight 232, he saved three siblings traveling alone and went back to rescue an 11-month-old girl after the plane crashed. One-hundred eighty four people survived the crash; 112 did not. The three siblings remained in touch with Matz and hooked up with him before he saddled undefeated Barbaro in the 2006 Kentucky Derby. In a domination seldom seen in the Run for the Roses, Barbaro won effortlessly by 6 ½ lengths under perfect handling by Edgar Prado. That made Barbaro six-for-six, three-for-three on both turf and dirt, with earnings topping $2.3 million.
He didn’t survive the Preakness. After breaking open the starting gate and being reloaded, Barbaro suffered a catastrophic fractured right leg in the first eighth of a mile.
Over the next eight months, fans and non-fans followed his battle to survive under the care of Dr. Dean Richardson at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center. After finally getting well enough to graze outside his barn, he suffered the crippling, painful hoof disease laminitis, the same disease that killed Secretariat in 1989. Barbaro was humanely euthanized. Gretchen said at a press conference. “Grief is the price we all pay for love.”
It’s nearly 20 years later. “Isn’t that unbelievable?” Roy Jackson said. “It was like a real roller coaster. Dean Richardson would call every morning. So many people followed the whole situation. We couldn’t believe the bins of cards we got from kids.”
Now, the Jacksons have another popular horse, She Feels Pretty, who has already won four Gr.1 stakes, missing two more by a half-length and three-quarters of a length. Overall, she’s seven-for-10 with one second and two thirds. “She’s amazing,” DeVaux said.
And she has a pal, a black and white goat that dutifully follows her around, even loading into a trailer. His name is Mickey. “Mickey has been to Woodbine, California, Keeneland and Saratoga,” Jackson said. “Mickey has done the job. Mickey’s really got to get some of the credit for the whole thing.”
Pin Oak Stud with Parchment Party
The late Ms. Josephine Abercrombie, a consummate horsewoman who founded Pin Oak Stud in 1952, left a tough act to follow when she passed peacefully in her home January 5th, 2022, just 10 days before her 96th birthday.
“Mrs. Abercrombie was an amazing lady and a great steward of the land, and most importantly, it was always the horse comes first,” said Clifford Barry, who’s been working at Pin Oak Stud for 35 years.
She would have smiled knowing that Dana and Jim Bernhard, who purchased Pin Oak Stud in November, 2022, and their son Ben, a rocket scientist turned horseman, have continued her good work, complementing their considerable success on the track with cutting-edge technology to prevent equine injuries, like the one that killed their first and best horse, Geaux Rocket Ride, as he was preparing for the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Classic. He was their first Thoroughbred, a birthday gift from Jim to Dana.
Simply put, the Bernhards, like Abercrombie, do the right thing. “That’s where it all starts,” Ben said. “Everything we do, we put the horse first, and my parents have driven that point home.” His mother said, “We are passionate about doing a good job for the horses. They can’t speak for themselves.”
Barry has witnessed the Bernhards’ ongoing commitment: “It’s been amazing to watch Jim and Dana be like-minded as Mrs. Abercrombie. I mean it really has been heartwarming to watch. Anytime you go through a major transition like this, you worry what the next entity will involve. But they’ve come in, and we got a facelift to the farm and added new property and new buildings and really have got the horses’ health and welfare at heart for sure.”
Abercrombie was an incredible owner and breeder. Among her nearly 100 stakes winners were her home-bred Eclipse Champions Laugh as well as Confessional, Peaks and Valleys and Broken Vow. She was The National Breeder of the Year, in 1995 and the winner of the Hardboot Award from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and the William T. Young Humanitarian Award. In 2018, Abercrombie was the Honor Guest of the Thoroughbred Club of America in appreciation for her “enduring sportsmanship, acumen and vision, and her devotion to the loftiest principles established by earlier leaders on the Turf.”
Like Abercrombie, Dana grew up with horses: “I grew up in Louisiana. I was given my first horse, a Tennessee Walker, when I was eight years old, and I’ve owned a horse ever since. I began riding that day. She was a trail horse for me. I was given my next horse for my 10th birthday, Dixie. I had her until I was 29. My love was horses, not just racehorses.”
Dana worked as a corporate attorney and marketing director. She met Jim, the founder and partner of Bernhard Capital Partners, through work. Jim’s company, based in Baton Rouge, now manages about seven billion dollars buying and investing in companies, and has some 30,000 employees.
“I was a lawyer and our law firm handled Jim’s corporate law,” Dana said. “He was a client. When we decided to start dating, we had an office rule against dating co-workers. I said, `How about clients?’ The senior partner offered me a list. We got married some six months later.”
They married in 1993 and Jim became an avid horseman. Asked why he loved it, he said, “Because Dana loves it.” They have purchased and maintained a dozen Friesians, a breed originated in the north Netherlands which nearly went extinct more than once. They ride their horses at Pin Oak Stud in Kentucky and Pin Oak Stud South in Baton Rouge. “When we got our first Friesians some 13 years ago, there were less than 75 in the United States,” Dana said. “Their personality reminds me of our two labrapoodles. They are just big puppy dogs.”
In June, 2021, Jim gave Dana a birthday gift, a trip to Lexington to buy a Thoroughbred yearling at the Fasig-Tipton July Sale. They wound up with three yearlings. The first one was Geaux Rocket Ride, a son of Candy Ride out of the Uncle Mo mare Beyond Grace. He cost $350,000 and was given to Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella.
Geaux Rocket Ride won a maiden race by 5 ¾ lengths, then finished second by 2 ½ lengths to Practical Move in the G.2 San Felipe Stakes. Another victory by a length and three-quarters in the $100,000 Affirmed Stakes convinced his connections to up the ante. Sent off at 12-1 in the Grade 1 Haskell at Monmouth Park, Geaux Rocket Ride went head-to-head with the even-money favorite, Arabian Knight, put him away, then turned back a rally by Kentucky Derby winner Mage, winning by a length and three-quarters. In his final start before the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita, Geaux Rocket Ride was second by a neck to Arabian Knight in the G.1 Pacific Classic. His three victories and two seconds in five starts had produced $980,200 in earnings. He was a legitimate contender for the Classic.
“In the Haskell, we were thrilled,” Dana said. “Rocket was such a feisty horse on one hand, feisty with his feed bucket, but in the barn and the paddock, he was so kind and loving. He loved his bath. He played with the water hose. He was quite a character. We just loved him. He was our first racehorse. We still love him to death.”
One week before the Breeders’ Cup, with Dana and Jim watching his workout live on TV, Geaux Rocket Ride suffered a horrific injury in his front leg, which was described by Breeders’ Cup officials as “an open condylar fracture with intersesamoid ligament damage.”
Dana said, “We were at our home in Pebble Beach and about to fly down to LA. We watched him live.” Jim said, “We saw it live. We didn’t know the extent of it until we drove down there. We couldn’t save him. His leg was too far gone.”
He was euthanized the following Wednesday. “It was a typical roller coaster ride,” Mandella said. “We had the greatest time with him, but also had one of the worst days of my life.”
His respect for the Bernhards is immense: “It’s a wonderful family, I can’t say enough good things about them. They want to do everything right by the horse.”
Ben, who had spent a lot of time hanging out with Mandella at his barn, was deeply affected, so much that he decided to leave Space X in Los Angeles and become a vice president of Pin Oak Stud and start his new company of developing equine sensors, Stable Analytics, with technology similar to the ones he had used at Space X: “Geaux Rocket Ride was training at Santa Anita, and I used to hang out with Richard Mandella, probably the biggest reason I’m into horse racing. Learn from him. Watch Geaux Rocket Ride train. I just got so into it. I decided to make the move.”
Dana said, “It was a wonderful thing. He is very passionate about preventing this type of accident in the future.”
Jim said simply: “He’s smart.”
Ben said of his career change: “It’s a lot of things that are different obviously, but there are surprising similarities. I talked to my friends back at Space X. They said, `There’s nothing like the rush you get watching a rocket launch.’ I said, `There’s something similar, watching your horse win a race.
“I came into this trying to make it as much of a math problem as I can. I know math and engineering. I think there’s an opportunity to look at it from that perspective. Geaux Rocket Ride had the best horseman, the best jockey, the Breeders’ Cup veterinary staff and somehow he still gets injured. There’s got to be a way to detect things.”
Ben developed equine sensors, which all the 150 to 170 Thoroughbreds wear at Pin Oak Stud: “They’re practically air-space sensors which began in the aerospace industry. We see gait changes and data. I’ve never really been a horse person. Richard Mandella changed that.”
Mandella said of Ben, “I’m sure he makes his parents proud. He’s just a class person, a gentleman, and maybe genius-smart. Yet he’s just the most normal young guy you could ever meet, just a pleasure to be around.”
At the Keeneland 2022 September Yearling Sale, the Bernhards bought Parchment Party, a son of Constitution out of Life Well Lived by Tiznow bred by Bobby Flay for $450,000. Ben’s sensors caught a potential problem. “We found a small abscess that was growing,” Jim said. “We were able to take care of that long before it became a major problem.”
Parchment Party, who is trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, won his first two starts. On June 6th, 2025, at Saratoga, he captured the Belmont Gold Cup when it was switched from turf to dirt, by 8 ½ lengths. In doing so, he clinched a berth in the starting gate for the Melbourne Cup, the race that stops a nation. “He’s the first Kentucky-bred to make the Melbourne Cup,” Jim said. “Australia? It’s just a little island down south from here. It’ll be fun.”
Market Boom Record-breaking demand fuels new benchmarks in 2-year-olds in training sale season
Article by Michael Compton
Despite an uncertain economy, the 2025 2-year-olds in training sale season wrapped up in June with an undeniable display of market power. Far from simply holding steady, Ocala Breeders’ Sales (OBS) and Fasig-Tipton broke numerous records across their major auctions. The market saw unprecedented top prices, and auction results demonstrated impressive leaps in gross revenue, average sale price, and median figures. The resilience in the marketplace sends a clear message: the demand for promising young talent is incredibly strong.
Buyer confidence drove significant year-over-year growth for both OBS and Fasig-Tipton. The 2-year-old sales, which ran from March through June, saw robust market activity. Out of 2,407 horses offered during the season, an impressive 1,955 (81 percent) changed hands, generating a total of $226,124,100 in gross sales. This performance marks a jump in gross receipts from 2024, when 2,137 out of 2,691 horses offered (79 percent) sold for $208,181,400.
New Benchmarks
The OBS March Sale made headlines with a record-setting renewal. A colt by Gun Runner, now named Brant, fetched an astounding $3 million. Donato Lanni, acting as agent for Zedan Racing, signed the ticket. Consigned by Eddie Woods—who retired after the OBS Spring Sale in April after 30 years as a staple at the 2-year-olds in training sales—Brant is out of the winning Liam’s Map mare Tynan, a half-sister to Grade 2 winner and multiple Grade 1-placed Pappacap and graded stakes winner Boppy O. Word was out on the precocious colt, who breezed a co- bullet eighth-mile in a blistering :09 3/5 at the under tack preview.
“The Gun Runner colt had a pedigree, and you don’t always see that kind of family and sire power at a 2-year-old sale,” Donato Lanni, a prominent bloodstock agent known for his sharp eye, said of the most expensive horse in OBS history. “He had everything, which is why we stretched a bit. He has a stallion’s pedigree. He could potentially do great things on the racetrack and be a stallion somewhere.”
Momentum continued at the OBS Spring Sale. The sale experienced year-over-year gains in gross sales and posted a record-breaking average price with nine horses bringing seven-figure prices. OBS June closed out the lucrative sale season with a booming renewal. In the final hour of the two-day auction, a filly by Curlin consigned by Caliente Thoroughbreds established a record price for the June Sale, selling to Randy Miles on behalf of owner Gus King for $975,000.
The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale in Maryland saw a Girvin filly take the top spot, selling for $1,100,000. She was purchased by Kerri Radcliffe/Alex Elliott, as agents for Memo Racing and Amo Racing. The filly is out of the Broken Vow mare Scarlet Dixie and was one of four horses to reach seven figures at the sale, marking a milestone. It was the 11th consecutive year the sale produced a seven-figure topper, and notably, the first time in its history that multiple juveniles sold for $1 million or more. Overall, the Midlantic Sale defied the odds, setting new sale records for gross revenue, average price, and median price. The achievement occurred despite facing challenges: severe weather forced the two-day sale to be consolidated into a single marathon session. Excessive rainfall even led to the cancellation of the breeze show, with the remaining horses galloping over the Timonium track for prospective buyers.
“It was a very vibrant 2-year-old market this year, especially at the top end,” said Lanni, who as agent acquired the top-priced colt and second-highest price horse of the Midlantic Sale—a $1,050,000 Violence colt consigned by Top Line Sales. “I think it has been about the same the last couple of years. The market is strong. It was great to see that there were a lot of international buyers this year, especially at the Fasig-Tipton Sale. Fasig-Tipton did a great job of soliciting outside buyers to come to that sale. There were more international buyers there than I have ever seen.”
More Than Speed
Millions of dollars are exchanged at the 2-year-olds in training sales, creating a complex puzzle for buyers, consignors, and sales officials alike. The challenge lies in identifying prospects with the ideal blend of raw talent and potential. While speed is certainly a factor, it’s far from the only consideration for buyers. Some consignors are even opting to enter horses for gallop-only at breeze shows. This allows trainers to go a bit lighter on the horses earlier in their development, prioritizing long-term soundness over a fast workout time.
“The under tack previews are a part of the evaluation process,” said OBS President Tom Ventura. “They aren’t end-alls, but they certainly give the buyers another method in evaluating the horses. I think timed works are an important part of it. Whether they go in :09 4/5 or :10 or :21 flat, it’s the way they move that’s important. And the timed works are also for comparison. If the fastest time at a specific sale is :10 flat, then that’s the benchmark buyers will compare the other horses to.”
Despite the importance of timed workouts at 2-year-olds in training sales, the OBS March Sale introduced a new “Gallop Only” option this year, allowing sellers to designate horses in the catalog specifically for a gallop at the under tack preview rather than a full breeze. The new option proved successful. A bay colt by Curlin named I Did I Did (Hip 224), a half-brother to Grade 1 winner Sweet Loretta, sold for $300,000 to trainer Mike Maker. The colt’s dam is the stakes-placed Bluegrass Cat mare Ithinkisawapudycat. Hip 661 at the March Sale, a chestnut colt by Munnings out of the stakes-placed Tapit mare Ursula, sold to D.J. Stable LLC and Robert Cotran for $210,000. Both colts were consigned by Niall Brennan Stables, agent for Mt. Brilliant Farm.
“The Curlin colt we sold in the (OBS) March Sale for the owner-breeder, he was a May foal,” Niall Brennan said. “He was a big colt, very well bred and they didn’t want him breezing in January. He just did a strong gallop, and he sold well. Mike Maker bought him; He’s a sharp judge. Here is a horse with a pedigree and a physical, so we were able to do that. But I think the trend this season anyway, people are willing to look at those horses. It’s encouraging.
“Obviously, some of the 2-year-olds in training sales were built on buying horses with physicals, not pedigree,” Brennan added. “They had to separate themselves on the racetrack and go out there and work fast to show their talent. That won’t change. The horses that have pedigrees, especially a nice filly, why beat them up? Just breeze them like normal in spring and you come see them do that. And if you love them, you don’t need to see them go :09 and change. It’s not going to be a dramatic change, but this season we have seen a light at the end of the tunnel. We don’t have to keep going faster, and faster, and faster. We can present these horses in their own natural rhythm and not push them too hard.”
When it comes to the highly competitive sales environment, buyers are faced with a wealth of information to consider. Breeze times, overall performance, physical integrity, and even the ability to overcome minor issues can all play a role in a buyer’s decision.
“Timed breezes, gallop outs, and the manner in which they do it and come out of it is one big compilation of information that buyers have to process,” Lanni said.
In July, Fasig-Tipton announced a significant shift for its 2026 Midlantic May 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale. The sale company will no longer officially clock breezes during the under tack show, instead aiming to showcase the natural athleticism of the horses to draw in more buyers. This will place the focus on a horse’s inherent talent rather than raw speed. Additionally, use of the riding crop will be restricted. Riders may carry a crop for safety purposes but they are not allowed to strike the horses during workouts.
“These changes reflect our commitment to improving our two-year-old sales process,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning. “We believe buyer focus has skewed too heavily toward stopwatch-based evaluations. This approach is intended to restore balance–emphasizing how a horse moves and presents itself on the track.”
Sprinters vs. Classic-Type Runners
The traditional focus at 2-year-old sales has been on finding horses with speed. However, there is a growing sentiment within the industry that this emphasis might be shifting with some buyers now prioritizing long-term potential and soundness.
“I feel like it was getting to the point where everyone was automatically thinking that they need speed and a horse to run right now,” noted Ocala-based consignor David Scanlon, who sold a $1 million Nyquist colt at this year’s OBS March Sale. “People now seem to be spending more money and wanting more time to develop Classic-type horses. More horses sold this year that just galloped (at under tack previews) and I think that might be a trend that we see more of in the future. The perception of the 2-year-old sales might be changing for the better. It’s positive, and it’s very encouraging.”
The market for two-year-old Thoroughbreds can be a dynamic environment, often influenced by various factors, from economic trends to the perceived quality of the horses themselves. Despite challenges, prominent figures in the industry remain optimistic about the demand for top-tier prospects.
“We still have a good marketplace for the 2-year-olds,” said Brennan. “When you look back at OBS March and April and Fasig-Tipton Midlantic with the weather playing a factor there, we’re still seeing that what is perceived as quality sells very well. There is a market for these horses and people have shown they want to buy them, including racing partnerships. We still see foreign money at OBS in March and April and at Fasig-Tipton. Where we are struggling is the middle market. Ultimately, there is a volume of horses that there are just no buyers for because we have too many and there aren’t the same number of people buying horses at that level. It’s just a fact. There is a smaller turnout for the 2-year-old sales compared to the yearling sales. If there has been a real positive this year, it was evidenced in March and April and especially in Maryland where we had no choice and a lot of horses did a strong two-minute lick, technically a gallop because it wasn’t timed against the clock.
“We’ve been worried about this trend at the 2-year-old sales: How fast are they going to have to go? Will :09 flat be the next standard? Or :20 flat? That’s crazy. All of us—buyers and sellers, alike—can admit that is crazy,” Brennan continued. “We need to see the trend going more toward taking care of these young horses to continue their development so they can realize what they are bred to do. They are not supposed to be Quarter Horses. Speed is speed, and we know here in America some people want that and want to see them go fast. But there are a lot of good horses that don’t go in :10 flat that go on to win the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks.”
Buyers at the top end of the market are consistently seeking horses with the potential for major wins, rather than immediate speed.
“I think in all segments of the marketplace the emphasis continues to be on those horses that can win big races—whether it is a colt or a filly,” said Browning. “There are very few people shopping, particularly at the upper end, for a horse to win going five (furlongs). They are looking for Classic-type horses or horses that are going to win going a mile or further because that’s where the money is in terms of purses and long-term value. It’s a trend we’ve seen evidenced in racing and it’s evidenced at the 2-year-old sales and in the yearling sales. People are looking for the more two-turn type horses.”
While the landscape for 2-year-olds in training sales is constantly evolving, a slight shift in philosophy is influencing how some horses are evaluated. This is leading to a more nuanced approach to identifying future stars.
“I think it is changing a little bit,” Brennan said. “We have a lot of smart, educated people and very good agents that are looking for prospects at these sales. They are doing their homework, and they know what they are looking at. They are looking for something sound, something sustainable, and long term. They are not looking for a horse that is going to run five furlongs next week and that’s it. They are trying to buy horses for the long term. And I think that’s why they are willing to look at horses that two-minute lick down there and looked very good doing it.
“You can tell a good mover just as easily as you can tell a bad mover,” Brennan added. “A bad mover is just a bad mover. He isn’t going to breeze good or gallop good. But if a horse has a nice pedigree, like a proven pedigree, and then you look at that horse and he is a great physical, now you can say, ‘I would buy this horse as a yearling in a heartbeat.’ There is a market for that type of horse. But there will always be trainers and buyers who want to try to buy the fastest horses in a sale. After all, it is American racing, and it’s about speed. There are many people in the business who can’t get out of their own minds, and the clock rules.”
What is Driving the Marketplace?
The overall health of the marketplace is linked to the allure of the racetrack. High purses can significantly influence the willingness of individuals and partnerships to invest in young horses. Purse money, coupled with changing ownership models and new avenues for promotion, are contributing to a more vibrant and enticing marketplace.
“Purses ultimately are the reward and then the super successful horses are rewarded at the breeding end,” said Ventura. “When young horses are running for $100,000 maiden races, you don’t have to compete at the very elite racetracks any longer to get high purses. That has been important in helping to keep things moving in the right direction. Despite the economic uncertainty and other outside influences going on, I think the result has been the people that are buying horses at the moderate level will have a chance to get a return by taking them to the races. High purse levels have not just helped the 2-year-old market but also the yearling sales, and all the way through. Hopefully, that trend continues, because purses are at the point now where stables can justify their participation. And we do have more participation due to partnerships and syndicates gaining more appeal.”
On-Track Performance and Buyer Retention
The continued vitality of 2-year-olds in training sales also hinges on the success of sale graduates at the racetrack. The proven success of sale graduates creates a powerful incentive for buyers to return and for new participants to enter the market.
“We also have to make sure we get repeat buyers based on the success that they have (with sale graduates), as well as attract new buyers,” Ventura shared. “Ultimately, 2-year-old sale graduates have been successful at the racetrack. No matter what statistics you use, 2-year-old sale graduates as a group have been more productive at the racetrack than any other group. We see it repeatedly, these horses competing at the highest levels. Moving forward, we always look for ways that we can improve the (sales) process, whether its rules regarding the use of the whip or other medication-type rules that we put in place. Those are always ongoing conversations, and I see that continuing with us tweaking things a little bit. But for the general model, I don’t see any major upheavals.”
Attracting and retaining buyers is vital for the health of any market. The 2-year-olds in training sales are no exception. While top-tier horses will always command high prices, there is a significant segment of potential buyers who operate with a more moderate budget. The challenge lies in making the sales more appealing to them. Brenning offers his perspective on how to broaden the buyer base, particularly by adjusting the expectations around timed workouts.
“The one thing that can be done is to attract owners to the 2-year-old marketplace,” Brennan related. “There are many people at the racetrack claiming horses. They would be ideal middle market buyers, but they need to feel like they have a shot. They can’t afford the horses that go in :09 3/5 or :09 4/5. They need to be able to come to a 2-year-old sale where they feel like they have a chance to buy horses in their price range. Maybe we need a way to level the playing field for them. If it’s not the clock, they might have a chance if there are a bunch of horses just doing a strong two-minute lick. And then they are in the same boat as everyone else. It will take time, but I have spoken to people this season and they have been very adamant about the fact that if we did that (more gallop only as opposed to timed breezes) that they would come back to the 2-year-old sales. If there are just a few horses galloping, that is not worth their time to attend a sale, but if there are 20 or 30 horses doing that, they will come to a sale.”
International Buying Bench
Fasig-Tipton has gone to great lengths to attract international buyers to its Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale in May. Expanding the global reach is a strategic imperative for many in the industry, and targeted international outreach has proven particularly fruitful for Fasig-Tipton. Building relationships and understanding the specific needs of foreign markets can lead to significant increases in participation and investment. Browning highlights Fasig-Tipton’s dedicated efforts and the positive impact of international buyers, especially from the Middle East.
“There is no question that we have made significant investments in time, money, and more importantly in personnel in terms of being active in recruiting efforts abroad,” Browning said. “Anna Seitz has been our key person involved in recruiting and Michael Adolphson has been a representative that we have had in the Middle East for a few years. The timing of the (Midlantic) sale works very well with their racing calendar in the Middle East. The dirt (surface at Timonium) is also a positive factor as the majority of horses that race in the Middle East compete on a dirt surface. It’s a combination of all those efforts.
“There has been a significant increase in 2024 and again this year in 2025 in participation from buyers in that sector,” Browning added. “And they are having good results at home with horses they are buying in the United States. It suits their racing product very well. We hope those trends continue and increase in future years.”
The 2-year-old sale market is clearly in a period of evolution, adapting to economic shifts, changing buyer preferences, and new opportunities. From the introduction of “Gallop Only” options to strategic international recruitment and a renewed focus on long-term potential over immediate speed, the industry is finding innovative ways to attract and retain buyers. The sustained success of sale graduates on the racetrack, coupled with increasing purse levels at the racetrack, and accessible ownership models signals a hopeful outlook for this vital segment of the Thoroughbred industry.
Talking to consignors about how getting yearlings ready for sale has changed over the last twenty five years
The art of yearling preparation in thoroughbred racing has undergone remarkable transformations, yet has always kept the same golden ideals when preparing the world to see the next crop of elite equine athletes. Yearling preparation, as many come to find it, marks the start of a horse’s journey to create themselves; and along with that ideal, create an impact on anyone that lays eyes on them.
Where once young thoroughbreds were given very minimal handling before they were sent off to the sales ring or showed off to buyers, today’s modern equine athletes are blessed with the technology of advanced balanced nutrition, state of the art biomechanics, measured conditioning, and even mental training. They are handled everyday as newborn foals to prepare them for what they are to face in yearling preparation. In a way, many could say that yearling preparation can even start at birth.
With the growing influence of data analytics and advances in veterinary recommendations and technologies, today’s yearlings are sculpted for not only physical conformation, but also for the earliest of maturity and trainability. This has caused the bar of the overall buyer expectation to be raised higher than we have ever seen it. A shift like this has certainly reflected the industry’s heightened competitiveness, and the ever-increasing demand for horses who are ready to perform the second that the hammer falls. It has always been what buyers have aspired for, but the definition on what it should look like has changed significantly over the years.
Prepping a thousand pound, elite athlete that can reach speeds of up to forty miles per hour is never an easy task. In fact, the yearling prep game has developed much more on the individual level simply because we have the technology to do so. The goal to create a profile that ‘checks all the boxes’ for buyers is the same goal no matter what level you are in the business. Denali Stud, a leading consigner at every major yearling sale, has set an example of what equine excellence should look like.
Denali is responsible for bringing some of racing’s best, like Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom, Kentucky Oaks heroine Malathaat, and champion two year old colt and top sire Uncle Mo. Perhaps there is a method to their madness, as Yearling and Sales Manager Donnie Snellings has integrated an articulate schedule for his horses to be at their best when they are presented to the world for the first time. Since joining Denali in 2009, his process of using modern day techniques to prep Denali’s star studded yearlings has brought generations of success.
His watchful eye of forage intake, joint evaluation, and overall development of confirmation is prominent throughout the season. Fillies are more so in groups, and colts are put in individualized paddocks due to temperament. Snellings adds that the colts are a bit more active than the fillies; who in contrast tend to immediately start grazing as soon as they get turned out with their group. “There’s always the one you’re trying to get the belly off of, so I may swim those. Those with bad confirmation I usually will walk only. Some will walk, and some will jog. It is all based on what I see in them every day on the farm”.
This individualized look into using modern exercising technologies is prominent in the current yearling market. The patterns of walking and jogging either by hand or by machine, along with swimming in equine engineered pools polishes Denali Stud’s yearlings to look their best at the sales.
That is quite the contrast of what yearling preparation used to be. “About forty or some years ago in the early eighties, not a whole lot of prep went on at all. Horses were still groomed of course, but there was never really an exercise program at all. The physical demand wasn’t as great as it is today. Mostly, they were kept in until the sale”, Snellings says.
The contrast between these two eras of yearling prep is driving the new vision that we see in these young horses at today’s sales. Even back then, there were always your million dollar yearlings by Storm Cat or Mr. Prospector, but the physical expectations of what those individuals should look like has clearly raised the bar for adding more steps to prepare these yearlings for the sales ring.
An inside look at the industry’s leading consignor for more than twenty five years further clarifies the strict agenda that is put on today's yearlings to look their best. Taylor Made Sales Agency has been setting the bar in their preparation to bring out the best within every individual equine athlete.
President and CEO Mark Taylor has said “I feel like we put more emphasis on the individual than ever before from nutrition to exercise. We are trying to grow our yearlings naturally while helping them become the best version of themselves.” He also feels that the biggest change in how yearlings are prepared at Taylor Made Farm compared to thirty years ago is that the process has become much more ‘customized’.
To further incorporate customization into a thoroughbred’s work schedule, Vice President of Boarding and General Farm Manager Logan Payne explained that they follow a consistent six day work schedule that is specifically designed to bring out the full potential of each horse. Two days of machine walking is followed by two days of strictly handwalking in paddocks going about twenty minutes each in two different directions.
After those four days of muscle and bone building is completed, the yearlings will then move on to two days of ring walking where they will walk over rows of PVC pipes that are about five feet apart to get them into the habit of striding out for future inspections. “Some yearlings may be picked to swim depending on what they have going on. Maybe five out of one hundred will swim at a given time”, Payne adds. He is referring to the individualistic look into the close monitoring of the joints that are strained during the duration of yearling prep.
Wanting to restrict the straining of certain areas of yearlings during their transformation has become very common with the modern exercise schedules we have today within yearling preparation. Aqua treads and coldwater swims are becoming a lot more prominent in the industry with this task, given that a lot of farms and consignors use them.
However, maybe the biggest reason why yearling prep has changed over the years doesn’t quite start behind the gates of the farms. If we fast forward to the sale itself, we will quickly notice the rapid growth of precise radiograph technology. Behind the vast scrutiny of every bone and muscle in a horse’s leg at the sale, x- rays and ultrasounds have gotten into a horse’s profile more than they ever have before.
The best buyers and owners are vetting their horses to the absolute maximum, and every flaw or malfunction that these horses faced in their preparation for the sale will be brought into light.
When raising horses to meet those standards, Taylor Made’s Director of New Business Development Frank Taylor states “ We’re so focused on horses x-raying and scoping good, that it affects how we prep these horses”.
The minimal handling and veterinary technology of yearlings twenty to thirty years ago would simply allow such flaws to go undetected. Knowing this, the growing concern for sesamoiditis has such a strong influence on how yearlings are prepared that it dictates not only the method of preparation for each individual horse, but also the intensity of exercise they can undergo. “These images are getting more precise, and are showing more and more, which causes you to really watch how you're prepping your horses”, Payne says.
Just like the precise vetting that dictates the value of a horse at auction, the preciseness in an exercise program for the individual horse and its needs is equally at high rise as well. With this information, I believe it is safe to say that prepping schedules are becoming as precise as the radiographs themselves.
Back over at Denali, Snellings has said “My thoughts would be with the use of your veterinarian, and the advances in x-ray. I think that we are all better equipped now to make good decisions on which horses fit into which program. And also, I think the surfaces that we have to work with now are so much better than what we had even 20 years ago.”
This shows how important it is to find the best schedule or program that fits each horse individually, so you’re not overdoing or falling short of unlocking a horse’s full potential before the hammer falls. In other words, you can’t work a yearling filly with a weak hind the same way you work a yearling colt with a strong shoulder to get the same result. Their bodies will clearly respond in different ways and will withstand and give out to ailments along the way. The recovery period to those ailments is when you start to run into problems.
The journey from farm to consignor showcases the everyday hard work and dedication that goes into knowing these horses individually to get them to their full potential before a sale. The sale reveals the finished product.
All and all, it seems the yearling market has both changed and balanced itself out when preparing the next generation of athletes for the industry’s greatest sales. The golden rule to follow, as Frank Taylor puts it, “Our goal is to raise athletic racehorses that are marketable as yearlings. So when we’re prepping a horse, we’re focused on getting the horse looking good and trying to get it very presentable so it will sell the most at the sale; but we’re also doing that with the idea that we do not want to do anything to detrimentally affect the horse’s racing career”.
Overall, yearling preparation has evolved from a more generalized approach to one that is highly individualized and responsive to every horse’s unique needs. Advances in conditioning programs, targeted exercise, nutrition, and veterinary technology have led to more customized care. Buyers come to the sale for one reason and one reason only; and that is to buy an athlete. In modern day, a deeper respect for the individual horse meets with a broader commitment to their future success on the track.
The resurgence of racing and breeding in New York and what other states learn from this
When Funny Cide rolled into the 2003 Kentucky Derby with a school bus full of New Yorkers, few in Sackatoga Stable could have anticipated the ride ahead. One Derby and Preakness victory later, the “Gutsy Gelding” and New York-bred drew new attention to the state’s breeding programs, including the breeder and owner awards as well as a series of stakes races specifically designated for these horses.
Twenty-two years later, a collaborative effort by the New York Racing Association and the state’s breeders’ organizations with legislative backing have revitalized the sport in the state. The result is a reinvigorated breeding and racing industry in one of the country’s oldest circuits, where a new Belmont Park and forthcoming purse parity make the Empire State’s future a bright one.
New York has long been in the business of racing, starting in the colonial era beginning in 1665 when Governor Richard Nicolls built a track on Hempstead Plain on Long Island. After the Civil War, the state emerged as the sport’s refined Eastern hub, while Kentucky was considered the upstart, rustic West. As the Triple Crown era took hold in the 20th century, racing expanded across the country with California, Florida, and other states growing the sport and the competition for horses to fill races. With breeding increasingly concentrated in Kentucky and Florida, individual states needed new ways to support the farms producing horses in their area. One way they found was through breeder incentive programs.
Established in 1973, the New York Thoroughbred Breeding and Development Fund (NYTBDF) distributes money in the form of breeder, owner, and stallion owner awards of more than $15 million. Funds come from both pari-mutuel wagering and Video Lottery Terminals at Aqueduct’s Resorts World Casino New York and at Finger Lakes Race Track. Breeders, owners, and stallion owners are rewarded when their New York-bred horses race and win in the state. In 2024 alone, over $16.5 million in incentives were paid out.
“[The Fund] incentivized people to get into the business. It gave people who had land in the Hudson Valley more incentive to keep it in agriculture. It was a very insightful piece of legislation that they put together,” long-time breeder Joe McMahon observed. “As the handle grew, those awards grew. There was money to spend. The legislation is written so that all the money has to be dispersed every year. It's about 20-some million dollars in awards alone that the fund administers.”
Funny Cide’s storybook journey through the Triple Crown brought new attention to New York’s breeding programs, spotlighting operations like McMahon’s, and proving the caliber of horse state-bred programs can produce. “Winning the Kentucky Derby gave a lot of additional legitimacy to the New York-bred program. Everybody's dream is to win the Derby and Funny Cide did that as a New York-bred. And I think a lot of people will say that it was a big factor in some of the expansion that happened after that,” Jack Knowlton of Sackatoga Stable echoed. Sackatoga’s success became the state’s best advertising for not only its breeding program, but also for the expansive benefits that come with it.
Funny Cide’s impact extended beyond New York, inspiring then–Kentucky state senator Damon Thayer to introduce legislation in 2004 establishing the Kentucky Breeders Incentive Fund, aiming to replicate the success of New York’s program in the Bluegrass.
“New York-breds have proven themselves to be able to win anywhere. But as someone who participates in a racehorse partnership, for New York owners to know that there is a strong New York-bred program to run their horses in gives them a level of stability,” Thayer shared. “And it's easier for them to make decisions on an investment that doesn't give you a first chance to pay off for three years, knowing that they're going to have those opportunities to race regularly in that state-bred program.”
To continue the momentum generated by Funny Cide, New York, through the New York Thoroughbred Breeders and the New York Racing Association, focused on increasing payouts to breeders, owners, and stallion owners. Since 2011, the program has issued payouts more frequently than other states—every two months—and in 2022, increased breeder award percentages based on whether a New York-bred is also New York-sired or by an out-of-state stallion. Tables 1 and 2 outline current payout rates. In addition, stallion owners receive 10% of purse money earned for first through third place by New York-sired state breds, with a $10,000 cap per award.
“It's a significant amount of money. When the win take home is over $50,000 and you have a New York-sired New York-bred, it's going to get a 40 percent award on that. So that's $20,000 in most cases,” McMahon pointed out. “Even if you're second or third, you're talking about a 20 percent straight award. That's what sets us apart from Florida, from Kentucky, from all the other states.”
The frequency of the payouts also makes New York an attractive place to breed and race. “People go, ‘Oh, I got this just in time. I'm going to pay my property taxes.’ Or they'll say, ‘Oh, this is going to go towards my stud fees or my board bill,’” said Tracy Egan, NYTBDF Executive Director. “That money in motion comes back into the equine industry in New York and helps us, helps the entire equine industry.”
The changes that the NYTBDF and the NYTB have instituted over the last few years have made breeding, buying, and racing even more profitable and attractive. Fifty years after the fund’s creation, as Najja Thompson, NYTB’s Executive Director, observed, “We thought this was the most opportune time, in a time that's really of concern for our industry overall, that we can make sure that our state is able to make that impact in producing and increasing our foal crop.”
Despite a declining North American foal crop, dropping from an estimated 17,500 in 2023 to 16,675 in 2024, New York’s foal crop grew from 1,281 to 1,530 in the same period. This growth highlights the success of breeder incentives and the organizations’ understanding of how to support farms in breeding and racing New York-bred foals.
In addition, under the new rules, a qualifying mare purchased in foal at auction for $50,000 or more can become New York certified “if the mare is present in New York State within 15 days after the sale is concluded, the foal from public auction mare is foaled in New York State and the mare thereafter is continuously in residence in New York State from within 120 days after her last cover in the year of conception of another foal and remains in residency until foaling” per the NYTBDF’s website. The mare can retain her New York residency even if she travels out of state for auction, provided she is back in the Empire State within 15 days of the auction’s end.
This positive trend in foal numbers comes not only from the actions of the NYTB and the NYTBDF but also from NYRA’s commitment to supporting and growing the state’s horse population. Through its carding of state-bred races and planned purse parity, the nonprofit entity behind the sport at Aqueduct Race Track, Belmont Park, and Saratoga Race Course has reinforced this historical circuit’s vital role in North American racing.
The success of New York’s breeding programs is also seen in the sales ring. As Fasig Tipton’s Evan Ferraro observed, “You see more national stables and trainers, coast to coast, that are focusing on them now as opposed to just the New York guys in the past. As the quality of the horse being bred has gone up, obviously, the sales prices have gone up. And also the overall product and what breeders and sellers are bringing to market, it continues to ratchet up to be a higher level.”
Breeder incentives are not the only driver of the state’s breeding and racing revival. NYRA has also introduced its own incentives to support the stables and farms that supply horses essential to their racing product.
Support from (NYRA) comes in the form of races exclusively for horses bred in New York; in 2024, state-bred races comprised about 25-30 percent of its daily cards, with 548 races worth a total of $42,817,000 in purse money. As part of its ongoing commitment, NYRA has pledged purse parity beginning with New York-bred two-year-old races in 2026 and extending to all races in 2027. This coincides with the reopening of a newly rebuilt Belmont Park that will feature a synthetic surface. The move is expected to boost the value of New York-breds by more than 15%.
For example, the purse for an open company maiden special weight at the Belmont at Aqueduct meet was $85,000 while the same race restricted to New York breds paid $80,000. By 2027, the same races would carry the same purse, regardless of their conditions. For owners of New York-breds, Sackatoga’s Knowlton believes this will be a game changer: “I think that they're going to be able to attract a lot more owners with a new Belmont, and hopefully, a lot of those owners are going to be the people that are involved in New York.”
For trainers like David Donk, whose stable is currently about 60 percent state breds, those increased payouts mean more money for everyone involved: “At the end of the day, we're working off of commission. If the owner is going to run for a little more money, it means the trainer is going to run for more money. In that aspect, we're all going to benefit from it.”
This also means that these New York-sired state-bred horses are going to be a hot ticket: “Now, with this purse parity coming into effect, that's a huge deal,” Ferraro shared. “These yearlings that we're going to have at the sale this year will all be eligible. And I would expect that they'll really be highly sought after.”
“The biggest difference you're seeing that is at the [Fasig-Tipton] Saratoga New York bred sale in August,” Donk shared. “You've seen an uptick in the last few years in the sale prices. So it's been very competitive to buy New York hips. You have the Select Sale the week before, and you're thinking, ‘there'll be a little bit of a downturn to the next sale.’ Unfortunately, it might be the reverse for us value buyers.”
NYRA’s support of the state’s breeding through both the condition book and the purse payouts is a continuation of the investment highlighted by Belmont Park’s reconstruction.
“First and foremost, without quality horses to run our racing programs, our overall product that we put on track suffers,” Andrew Offerman, NYRA Senior Vice President of Racing & Operations, observed. “It's important that we focus on more than just the business of the racetracks. It really does incorporate breeding and the other aspects of the business that go into that overall economic impact.”
As Thayer pointed out, “if you're NYRA and you're trying to fill races on a year-round basis, you have to have that strong, what I call native horse population – in this case, New York breds – to sustain a couple of hundred days of racing every year. And they got that in spades.”
Combine NYRA’s support for New York-bred races with NYTBDF incentives, and breeding or racing a New York-bred – especially one by a New York-based stallion – can be more lucrative than with a Kentucky or Florida-bred. NYRA’s Stallion Stakes series and the NYTBDF’s Stallion Owner's Awards provide added incentives for farms like McMahon Thoroughbreds (home to the state’s leading stallion Central Banker as well as Solomini), Sequel Stallion Station, (standing graded stakes winners Keepmeinmind and Fire at Will) and newcomer Ironhorse Stallions, whose Bucchero is a leading sire of synthetic runners.
Harlan Malter, one of the partners behind Bucchero and Ironhorse, saw that moving the stallion from his original home in Florida to New York was right for both his horse and the state’s breeding program.
“I think New York is heavily on the rise. We just felt that with Bucchero's success, when we actually made the decision, the synthetic had not really been lined up. It's obviously worked out well. He was leading synthetic sire in the United States last year. He's basically one of the top ones this year also. It was the right place for us to bring him,” Malter shared. “They have a huge opportunity in New York. The breeders, the horsemen, NYRA, it's all been building to this moment.”
The additional monies from the Stallion Series races as well as Stallion Awards are in place to incentivize breeders to breed their mares to the state’s slate of stallions, but about 60 percent of mares still go out of state to be covered. This highlights New York’s need to continue recruiting stallions. “We just need to slowly elevate the quality of the stallions to give breeders the ability to both sell into this commercial marketplace and then give owners/breeders the ability to go, I can beat anybody in the gate with me with a New York sired horse,” Malter observed.
Echoing Malter, Fasig-Tipton’s Ferraro understands that “the more quality stallions that you can get to the state, the better off the program is going to be, especially with the aid of incentives like this New York Sire series.”
In addition to new stallions, NYRA and the breeders’ organizations see that the state will need more owners to race these growing numbers of New York-bred horses. As Knowlton observed, “you get more owners, you get more horses, and you get more people to the racetrack. To me, it revolves around attracting additional owners and additional capital into the game. We've done it in our small way. We've got, as I said, around 120 partners. They put in money, and they come to the track, and they gamble. There's no better way to improve your product and find more revenue than people in ownership.”
Belmont Park’s scheduled 2026 reopening serves as another opportunity to bring more owners to the state. With the new racetrack comes purse parity and the chance to “participate in the sport on the biggest stage. You have an opportunity when a new Belmont Park is complete to visit both the newest venue in the country, but also the most historic, continuously operating facility in the country is Saratoga,” NYRA’s Offerman observed. “You really get everything from the entirety of the historical perspective of horse racing within the state of New York. And then you've also got the benefit of what we do not only within the facility for the ownership experience, but also the fact that we broadcast more hours on national television than any other racetrack operators.”
As construction continues on a 21st-century edition of Belmont Park, one prepared to support year-round racing in the Big Apple, the racing in this historic circuit is as rewarding as ever. “For the long term, 12 months a year, New York and Kentucky are going to be the pillars that we all stand on,” Malter predicts.
“Obviously, I'm a Kentucky-first guy, but it's important for the Kentucky breeding and racing industry for there to be strong regional markets like the one in New York,” Thayer echoed. “I think it's so critical that New York has a vibrant, year-round circuit. A strong state-bred program is critical to year-round racing in a place like New York. So I'm happy to see it, and it's good for the industry as a whole.”
The current state of the sport in New York shows “that racing is popular, and people will support it in New York State. Next year, we're going to have Belmont opening. We're going to have the Breeders’ Cup back in 2027,” McMahon shared. “We have a friendly government relationship with racing. The Breeding and Development Fund has done an excellent job of encouraging people to keep their farmland as farmland and to get into the horse business and we will continue to do a great job on those fronts.”
“I think the quality of the New York product right now is the strongest it's ever been,” Ferraro observed. From new facilities to growing incentives to rising foal crops, American racing is in a New York state of mind, and if you can make it there, truly you can make it anywhere.
How and why the nutrition industry is changing the delivery of minerals to horses from inorganic to organic formats
What are organic minerals and why should these be part of racehorse diets?
Chelated minerals, commonly known as ‘organic minerals’ have been around since the 1980s and were quickly adopted into feeds for production animals as benefits relating to health, production and physical gains became apparent through a growing body of research and proven results on farms. Early in the 1990s organic minerals appeared in horse feeds with most brands adopting a partial replacement concept, using a low inclusion of organic minerals alongside inorganic minerals.
By early 2000 researchers began querying if diets could be reliant fully on organic minerals, working on the basis that ‘nature identical’ minerals would require lower feeding rates and could still deliver the same level of performance whilst also benefitting the environment.
Fast forward to today and some feed companies, including equine, are now operating with organic minerals only. Is this the future of mineral nutrition for racehorses?
What is an organic mineral and where do minerals come from?
Most mineral additives come from inorganic compounds such as oxides, sulfates, carbonates and phosphates. Interactions between inorganic minerals combined with lower levels of digestibility means inclusion levels are often high in feeds to ensure dietary needs are met. Variability in forage is also a factor in why mineral levels often run well above recommended intakes as well as catering for the ‘more is better’ mindset in the marketplace.
Over-formulating and over feeding of mineralized feeds or supplements does not get better results. In fact, quite the opposite. There is a fine balance between minerals, which actively compete with each other for absorption in the body. Then there is the question of energy efficiency as processing excessive and unnecessary nutrients requires energy within the body.
Organic minerals offer an interesting alternative, having a greater bioavailability, not competing for the same absorption sites, reducing effects of interactions, and wastage of nutrients excreted into droppings. The excretion of minerals was a key driver behind the increased use of organics in the agri sector as the impact of farming on the environment continues to be closely scrutinized. The benefits of using organic minerals aren’t just about animal health and performance, they are also about environmental responsibility.
What is an organic mineral?
Organic minerals are trace elements, also known as micro minerals, that are complexed or otherwise associated with an organic molecule. Most commonly referred to as chelated minerals. The term organic mineral is used quite broadly, and there are several different types of organic minerals used in animal feeds. Copper, zinc, manganese and iron are available in chelated form, whilst selenium is available in organic yeast.
How are they made?
Creating an organic mineral is a process of reacting the inorganic mineral salt with a suitable non-metal entity known as a ligand. Ligands are mostly single amino-acids or small peptides (chains of amino acids). Once bonded the mineral becomes part of a biologically stable, and more available structure.
The key word is stability as this influences how that mineral behaves when fed, as the digestive system presents several challenges, including varying levels of pH. As a general rule, minerals organically bound with peptides (amino acid chains), that have a greater potential to form bonds, create more stable organic minerals than those based on a single amino acid.
Chelation of minerals is the process used for zinc, copper, iron and manganese. Selenium is a little different, belonging to a different group of elements, that are difficult to chelate in the same manner. For that reason, organic selenium is also derived from selenised yeast, a form commonly used in equine feeds and for which equine specific research is available.
How do chelates work?
Mineral stability and resilience to some of the challenges of the digestive tract is one part of the success story behind chelated organic minerals. Binding with amino acids also means that organic minerals utilize different pathways for absorption compared to inorganic minerals. This improves absorption and reduces competition with other minerals.
As the ‘what goes in’ with organic minerals is more stable and is easily absorbed there is less needed to meet requirements and still provide benefits to health and performance. On a feed tag or supplement label the number might look lower but the efficacy is greater.
When reviewing your feed choices and looking at all the numbers it is worth asking the question as to what form of mineral is being used, not just the milligrams per kilogram value in the brochure. The mineral source is not always declared on a website or datasheet but by law is noted on the feed label in the additive section, so it is worth walking out to the feed room and taking a look.
The whole concept of using chelated minerals is to “do more with less”. That is the challenge as Steve Elliott, Global Vice President of Companion Animal at Alltech describes it, and what Alltech have set out to prove is possible.
There are multiple papers on the benefits and efficacy of organic minerals in farm animals. There is however much less equine specific research available. That does not mean organic minerals aren’t good for horses, or don’t work as well, it’s just that horses aren’t generally for eating (which influences spend on research) and they are harder to research.
What research likes is specific measurables that can easily be linked back to a change in diet, such as live weight gain or milk production. As we don’t fatten horses to eat, or use them for milk, the measurables in horses are harder to work with. Increased performance has too many other variables involved, such as ground conditions, rider etc. As such, we have to work with a smaller pool of data on horses specifically and combine that knowledge with other species with similar digestive systems.
What is known from other species?
Inclusion of organic chelates in animal feeds has been a common practice for the last 40 plus years. Typical inclusion levels are 30-40% of the total mineral being provided as organic, with the remainder as inorganic. At that level there is plenty of research to show a positive effect. Inclusion levels much below that rate of inclusion are questionable. Just because a feed or supplement says ‘contains chelated minerals’ does not guarantee they are included at a meaningful or effective level.
More recently the use of organics only has been the area of interest for research. This is an area Alltech have been heavily involved in, and at present have conducted 253 trials, resulting in 131 peer-reviewed papers.
One of the key questions when considering organics is how much less can be fed versus traditional inorganic minerals in the daily diet. Just how much better are they? From other species the answer is a whole lot less, with research into poultry and swine showing less than half the amount is needed compared to inorganics mineral sources.
What about horses?
Whilst there are no feed tables specifically for horses referencing organic mineral and inorganic mineral requirements there is enough evidence to give confidence that organic minerals could be, and already are being, used as the sole micro mineral source for horses.
Horse feeds are typically generously fortified or over-fortified against requirements. For horses in training where feed intake is easily 4 times that of a sport horse the daily intake of copper, zinc, manganese and selenium is often significantly above requirement. For example, horses in training are often consuming copper at 250-300% of requirement.
With the source of copper being either dominantly, or entirely inorganic, the level given is not necessarily, in fact it is quite unlikely, to be twice or three times as good as feeding the required level. High intakes will result in greater losses into feces, having little benefit to the horse, and having a negative impact on the environment.
There are equine feed companies already working with organics only, including Guabi Horse Feeds in Brazil and McCauleys feeds in the USA. Working closer to daily requirements, rather than high dosing, and using organic minerals only, these companies are proving organics are a real option for performance and racing horses just as much as they are for other animals.
What benefits do organic minerals bring?
Minerals such as selenium, manganese, iron, copper and zinc are added to feeds and provided in supplements for two reasons, to address the shortfall and variation in mineral content from forages, and to provide levels above basic requirements with the aim of enhancing performance or using nutrition as a therapeutic tool.
Organic mineral research orientates around improved uptake and efficacy within the body, trying to improve as an aspect of performance related to that mineral. Each mineral has its own role in animal health.
Selenium
Selenium has many roles in the body. Primarily, its role in regulation of the antioxidant system. Following the uptake of selenium by the body, selenium becomes incorporated into numerous selenium-dependent enzymes and proteins, which play many major biological roles.
Selenium is also a mineral which is regulated, having a maximum permitted level in the daily diet for horses, as whilst being beneficial selenium can also be toxic. When looking at feeding horses in training additional selenium should only be given if feed and forage levels have been assessed and factored into the daily intake.
Research into organic selenium benefits for poultry, swine and cattle includes:
Improved disease resistance
Improved antioxidant defense
Improved retention of selenium in muscle and tissue
Improved fertility
Improved growth rates
Improved selenium content in milk and colostrum
Equine specific research has also shown the same effect on mare’s milk and colostrum.
Copper, Zinc, Manganese and Iron
Each of these minerals has a role to play in health and performance. When researching efficacy for organic minerals these are often grouped in research as the objective is to determine if replacing this group in part or in full improves the finished feed.
Copper is one of the most important micro minerals for horses. It has many key roles including, mobilizing iron stores, correct functioning of enzymes, maintaining elastic tissues, proper skeletal growth and development, and its role as an antioxidant.
Zinc has a broad reach in the body, being an enzyme activator or co-factor, as well as being part of over 200 proteins. Zinc is required for normal functioning of insulin and for normal glucose utilization. It is also important for a functioning immune system, healing of wounds and neurological functions.
Manganese is involved in bone formation, fatty acid synthesis and amino acid metabolism. Unlike copper and zinc that are naturally low in forages, the level of manganese can be sufficient to meet daily requirements. Variability in levels found within forage is high and supplementation is common practice to cater for this risk.
Iron is part of hemoglobin, the component of red blood cells that allows oxygen to be carried to tissues. Iron deficiency is rare as the horse has a high ability to conserve iron. Approximately 67% of the body’s iron is stored in red blood cells in the form of hemoglobin.
Red blood cells are formed within the body and remain in circulation for around 150 days. When they die, the iron they contain is recycled and used to build new red blood cells. As such, there is rarely a time where iron is lost from the body. The exceptions to that being horses with high worm burdens, horses with gastric ulcers that cause blood loss, and horses suffering from EIPH (Exercise Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhage). Iron is found in good quantities in feed ingredients and forages, sufficient in most cases to meet requirements. Iron is often added to feeds at low levels to ‘top-up’ naturally occurring iron.
Research from other species including farm, aquatic and dog show, organic minerals when fed in combinations, have benefits including:
Improved bone mineral content
Increased growth rates and weight gains
Improved milk and colostrum mineral profile
Increased total antioxidant capacity
Improved gut morphology
Improved availability in the presence of antagonists
In horses, a study looking at the influence of oxalates, a substance that reduces calcium uptake, researchers were able to demonstrate that organic minerals were better able to prevent bone resorption compared to inorganic minerals. Diets contained organic copper, zinc, manganese and selenium.
How does the environment benefit?
One of the achievements of organic minerals is reduced mineral leaching, an important consideration for farm animals. Alltech have investigated this in horses also, looking at the effect of their organic minerals (Bioplex) on fecal mineral excretion and fecal mineral leaching potential.
In this research horses were fed one of three diets, a standard diet with no mineral supplementation (CON) or diets containing either inorganic (ING) or organic added minerals (ORG). In both diets with added minerals there were increased mineral levels found in droppings. The diets were supplemented to be higher than requirements (120-380% NRC), which replicates what is commonly found in industry feeds. The organic zinc and copper levels found in the manure were lower than inorganic levels, demonstrating better uptake in the body.
Both supplemented diets resulted in increased levels of phosphorus leaching from the manure, although the organic mineral diet resulted in numerically lower levels of phosphorus leaching than inorganic. The same pattern was seen for sulfur.
Manure from all diets was then used to grow tall fescue grass to determine if the diet influenced grass growth. Grass was grown using the manure from the horses fed the three different diets, with water on its own (WAT), and a liquid nutrient solution (NUT).
Grass grown with manure from horses fed diets supplemented with organic minerals (ORG) had 16% greater biomass than grass grown with manure from diets supplemented with inorganic minerals (ING).
So are organic minerals a good choice for horses in training?
Whilst the majority of research is from other species the science is sound, and the benefits found are equally relevant for horses in training. The majority of feed companies already use chelated minerals in their feeds to provide a proportion of minerals in this format, albeit at varying levels. What is less common, at least in equine, is the total replacement of trace elements with organic formats only, but it is being done and done successfully.
Chris Hartman in profile - still learning and still winning
Article by Ken Snyder
Chris Hartman took a pass on high school. Got promoted to groom before he knew how to muck a stall. Blew right past the assistant trainer’s position to trainer. And then, he leapfrogged $3 million in earnings, going from $2.9 million in 2021 to $4.2 million in 2022. Earnings in both 2023 and 2024 exceeded $5 million.
His story is at least as remarkable as his ascent through Thoroughbred racing and really, through life.
He went to work on the racetrack at the ripe old age of 11, drawing his first paychecks not from his trainer-father Stan, but Molly Pearson at Prescott Downs.
”Molly’s mother had actually made her hire me. She said, ‘You need to hire this boy, he needs a job.” It was an idea Pearson wasn’t keen on. She didn't like the way he mucked stalls. When Molly told her mom of Hartman’s weakness with a muck fork and straw, her mother replied, “Well, that's good. Then he shouldn't be cleaning stalls anyway.’”
It was the beginning of his education in ground work.
Hartman and Molly Pearson would groom horses together and give him valuable experience. She was, in Hartman’s words, “quite a caretaker of her horses. She'd have me rubbing their legs, putting jell on their legs and putting wraps on them.”
Hartman, 52, doesn’t remember life without horses. “I grew up with Thoroughbreds in the backyard.” His boyhood was spent with his dad at Turf Paradise, the Arizona county fair circuit, or Prescott Downs (now Arizona Downs).
The road called to Hartman at age 15 when an exercise rider going to Minnesota from Arizona asked him if he wanted to go along with him. His response? “Hell, it sounds like fun.” It was the beginning of a jaunt that took him from Minnesota to Tampa Bay Downs and back up to Kentucky. ‘Fun,’ though, was secondary for Hartman.
“I wanted to learn everything I could about a horse. So I sort of moved a little bit,” understating it considerably. He built his future watching those around him, studying individual horses carefully, and putting into practice something his grandfather, also a trainer, said to him: “You should always be able to learn. You can’t know everything about a horse.
“To this day, I try to learn all I can.”
Learning from his own horses began for Hartman at age 14 when trainer Michael Freeman at Turf Paradise agreed to sell him a horse named Jat Alane for $300. When Hartman showed up at Freeman’s barn - lead shank, halter, and money in hand - the trainer told him he had changed mind on the deal. It was a ruse that got Hartman fuming. He was mad enough to tell Freeman his dad had warned him about “people like you.” The trainer relented with the put-on and the nixed deal; he gave the “youngster,” as he called Hartman, the horse. The transaction probably was part of Hartman later running the shedrow for Freeman when he was 16.
Hartman’s next purchase came when he noticed a horse cooling out on the backside after a race. “He’d just ran and he was running off with the hotwalker, so I knew the horse didn't give all he had in the race.” He approached the horse’s disgruntled trainer, Sheridan Majors, at probably just the right time. When Hartman asked about the horse, Fine Hostage, the trainer said, “’Give me five-hundred dollars and you can have this s.o.b.’ So I said, ‘I'll be right back.’ I went to my room and got the money and came back with it. That's how I got him.”
Hartman trained the horse off the poor performance list and won the second time out on December 28, 1990 when he was 17. “He paid one-hundred eighty-nine dollars. I was training horses but I wasn’t old enough to have a license, so the horses were in my dad's name.”
“When I was training that horse, I really wanted to figure it out for myself; was it really about the horse, or do you just need good horses, or do you have to go underneath somebody and be an assistant?”
Fine Hostage, indeed, helped Hartman ‘figure it out’ with another win in his fourth start for him on February 2, 1990.
At the time Hartman was working for another trainer, Dale Hunt, who bridled at an employee with his own horse.
“I had told him, ‘I'm gonna’ get a horse.’”
Hunt apparently thought Hartman wasn’t serious. After the acquisition, the inevitable happened with Hunt. “He told me, ‘I don't want you spending all your time with that horse,’ and I said, ‘Okay, that's fine. I'll give you my notice now. I'm going to be spending a lot of time with him. I guess you're gonna need somebody else.’
“He's like, ‘Whoa, whoa, you ain't got to be doing it like that.’”
The exchange, at least for Hartman, was strictly business without emotion. “I wasn’t upset with the guy. I had a game plan.”
The plan included leaving the Southwest for a stop at Churchill Downs where Hartman worked for trainer Johnny Tammaro as night watchman. That job took him from Louisville to Saratoga. A thousand dollars was stolen from his wallet - this soured Hartman. From Saratoga he returned to Arizona. It was the jumping off point for him as a trainer.
“I had the mindset, I was going to learn either how to train a horse or go back and just get a job when I was really of age to do it. The whole goal was just to see if I can make a horse as good as they can be, if they are good enough to win, regardless of what the form looks like.”
The training regimen, the feed, the close watch on health and injury are, of course, the primary tasks of a trainer. But Hartman applied an intangible that is easily discounted or dismissed that made him successful, first in the Southwest and now at Churchill Downs. And it might also take him into the national spotlight in the future.
“I've got a love for horses. There's no doubt about it. They're magnificent to me. I love to see them in flight, just running. When you know that a horse just gives you everything they've got when they run, it does something for me. I was very blessed in the fact that I was born into something that I really enjoy doing,” he said.
The desk in his office at Barn 48 at Churchill Downs is strategically placed for him to look down the shedrow at every stall on one side of his barn.
“I spend a lot of time here at the barn just looking down the shedrow. At eleven o'clock here, we feed them, and all their heads start to pop out from the stall door. They know, eleven is ‘din-din’ time. They'll start nickering when the feed starts coming. It's a good time.”
If there is a favorite aspect of training for Hartman it is learning the personality of each of his horses.
He talked about a filly in his barn he described first as “very difficult” before amending it quickly to “super difficult.” How “super”? She had ripped off her hind shoes loading in the horse trailer on the way to Hartman’s barn at Churchill Downs.
A cold water spa just across from Hartman’s barn presented another difficulty for the filly. Hartman smiles recounting a recent incident.
“She goes in that thing all the time. About every third day, though, she decides she wants ‘more attention,’” as he termed it. “The other day she was kicking, using her hind legs. I thought, ‘somebody's going to get hurt.’ I came over and stood behind her and just started nudging her. She stopped and turned her head to look at me, turned some more to look at me , and then she walked right in.
“That’s just her. That’s what she does.”
Difficult or easy, all of Hartman’s horses run and run often, a reputation which he earned early in his career and still earns.
“Your magazine says ‘Trainer,’ right? It doesn’t say ‘Stall.’ I think you gotta’ run them.” At the time of writing, the 30 horses he has currently at Churchill Downs have made 56 starts in 38 days of racing—not that far from two starters per day.
His absence of shyness around the entry box has paid dividends. His career win percentage is the same as racing luminary, trainer Steve Asmussen.
Despite that better-than-average win percentage, he dismisses statistics. “There are some real good trainers that are ten percent, twelve percent, and fifteen percent. I think people get a little too focused on the percent, not on the horse.” He goes so far as to say that a focus on statistics by trainers accounts for the increasing number of scratches and small fields. “They’re scared to run them because they want to keep their numbers up.”
The task, according to Hartman, is spending a lot of time determining where they run. Like any trainer, he likes to run his horses where they have a shot at winning but that doesn’t mean shipping a horse to a small track from Churchill Downs to improve chances of a win. “If I've got a horse that needs to be at Belterra (in Cincinnati) then they’ll be at Belterra,” making an oblique reference to trainers who shop for easy spots. He thinks it is one cause of smaller fields and more scratches at major tracks.
The path to the success Hartman has achieved to date began with his first venture to Lone Star Park outside Dallas. That’s where he introduced a newcomer, Joe Davis, to horse racing.
“He called me up and wanted to talk about getting in the game. He had never owned a horse.
“He was the first guy that really invested in a lot of horses with us, and that probably changed the direction for me.” Three straight wins for horses with Davis’s first three starters for Hartman didn’t hurt in cementing the relationship.
“Before, I was just plugging along, trying to get us in the Midwest.” Hartman has had as many as 45 horses owned by Davis in his barn through the years.
The other major boost to Hartman was giving Oaklawn Park a shot in 2013. In 77 starts in Hot Springs, Hartman horses won 16 races for an impressive 21% win rate and 12th place in trainer standings for the meeting.
The move was the beginning of “getting better horses and new owners.”
Of course, that doesn’t just happen. “If you’re winning races, owners will come.”
One new owner Hartman met at Oaklawn, James Driver, brought him 15 horses that the trainer knew were well-bought, solid horses.
“He had replaced his previous trainer and called me and said he wanted to make a switch,” recalled Hartman. “I was a little bit surprised. I thought they had a good thing going myself. I said to him, ‘Well, maybe you'll work it out with him.’
“I try to quiz someone a little bit, you know, to see what’s going on. Are they firing their previous trainer because, ‘I don't like the way he picks his races,’ or whatever. I’ll ask, ‘Well, where do you think they should run?’ And then you might find out the reason why they're firing the trainer is because they want to run them in allowance races. Well hell, it ain't gonna be much different with me. I want to find out what the guy's doing. What's the thinking? Is he firing the trainer just to make a change or is there a legit reason.”
This may go a long way in explaining the long relationships he has had with key clients and the success he has brought them. “Joe Davis told me, ‘Chris, we've been together longer than two of my marriages.’”
From Oaklawn, Hartman, a noted storyteller on the backside at Churchill Downs, employed ‘a little bit of convincing’ with some of his clients to give Kentucky and Churchill Downs a try in 2015.
“We had twelve horses for Driver and I thought they’d fit here,” said Hartman. He is still traveling the Churchill Downs-Oaklawn Park circuit each year. He also still has horses from both Davis and Driver.
What is next for Hartman? The last two $5 million-dollar years bode well for the future.
“You always have to go forward. I'm just trying to get better horses.”
The challenge he embraces to get the most from horses is something that has never left him. “I'll be honest, if I had fifty-two stake horses in the barn right now, and there's fifty-four stalls, I’d still have a couple claimers. I love trying to figure them out. Some people like to mess around with old cars, and I like to mess around with horses.”
And making them, of course, as good as they can be.
Stay tuned.
From the discipline of the battlefield to the demands of the backstretch - Mark Simms Jr. in profile
Article by Alicia Hughes
There is a level of ease that radiates off individuals fortunate enough to exist entirely within their element, an enviable calm that never waivers even when honing their craft in an industry designed to be a 365/24/7 grind.
Theirs is the kind of vibe that hangs like pollen in thick summer air and drapes itself all over those who enter their orbit, which explains why the far end of Barn E at Churchill Downs’ Trackside Training Center in Louisville is as much a sanctuary for its occupants as it is a hub for aspirations. Through every pass down the shedrow, every forelock that gets rubbed, every conversation had with a visitor, friend, or colleague, it becomes as obvious as the black and red sign with the white diamond out front.
Mark Simms, Jr. is exactly where he should be – the byproduct of having spent the brunt of his adult life forging a path toward what he believed was his inherent destination.
“For sure, this is definitely my passion,” the 36-year-old trainer said through a widening grin. “I was telling my wife the other day how relaxing it is to come to the barn. No matter what’s going on elsewhere, coming to the barn and being around the horses, it’s just super tranquil.”
Technically, there is little in the way of tranquility in the life of a Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. There is no off season, or real days off for that matter, and one’s entire livelihood hinges on the ability of 1,000-pound athletes supported by sinewy limbs as fragile as they are powerful.
Yet, from the time he took his first steps while trying to follow his grandfather to the barn to serving his country in the Army during tours of duty in Korea and Afghanistan, the demands of a life that revolves around equine athletes is what Simms sought the most. It was an ambition he chased even when the world presented him with chance after chance to settle into an illustrious career path he had already proven he could excel at.
Hence, as he goes about his morning routine in the barn with his name on it filled with horses owned by some of the most storied clients in the sport, the appreciation for his most challenging and rewarding journey to date is almost tangible.
There is a plethora of metrics used to measure success amongst trainers - win percentages, stakes victories, purse money, graded triumphs. While attaining lofty marks in those categories is as much as goal for Simms as it is for any of his comrades, the fact he found a pathway into an industry that doesn’t easily open doors for those who don’t descend from a certain ilk is as much an achievement as any piece of hardware from a Grade 1 test.
While he comes from a long line of horsemen, including his grandfather who was a trainer himself, Simms’ arrival at his current reality is one even Hollywood’s most creative screenwriters would be hard pressed to conjure. Born in Texas, he grew up on the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indian Reservation in North Dakota near Chippewa Downs racetrack, the product of a military family. Even as he followed in his parent’s footsteps - being in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) while enrolled in Virginia State University, becoming an Intelligence Officer and eventually rising to the rank of captain in the Army - fate always kept him close enough to horses to where he could never quell the zeal that had manifested since he took those first wobbly strides toward his grandfather’s stable.
To sign up for such a vocation requires an uncommon passion, discipline, faith, and work ethic lest one get devoured by the unyielding highs and lows that are the sport’s hallmarks. To keep chasing a dream that promised to do nothing but test those intangibles at every point of call demanded something as unique from Simms as his backstory itself.
“I always wanted to train horses; I knew that. Training horses, being around horses is really all I ever wanted to do…but I really didn’t think it was feasible there for a while,” Simms said. “Even throughout my time in the Army, I was always trying to get close to the horses, but I just didn’t have a path to get in. Horse racing, especially in Kentucky, it’s super inbred to where people’s dads were trainers, their moms were trainers, or they were tied to a farm. Really, my way in was being in the military.”
During his freshman year at Virginia State University, as he began studying toward the degree in Criminal Justice and minor in Animal Science he would ultimately graduate with, Simms worked at a nearby horse farm in his free time to try and satiate his lifelong calling, a move most of his acquaintances dismissed as a pipedream.
He did have a certain individual in his corner, however, encouraging him not to let his passion project become just that.
“I met my wife in college our freshman year and I was working at a farm just to be close to the horses,” Simms said of his wife, Shayla who works as a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit nurse. “I would tell people ‘I want to train horses’ and everyone was like ‘You’re crazy’. But she was really the first person to really be like ‘You can do this’. That’s how I knew she was the one.
“She would buy me books about horse racing and just horses in general just to show her support. That’s when the gears started turning a bit. But I did ROTC, so I knew after college I was going to be an officer in the Army.”
As a result of being in the top 2% of cadets in the nation, Simms got to choose which branch of the Army he wanted to go into. He settled on Korea first in 2011 and while there, would find his way to the racetracks on the weekends all while keeping tabs on the major goings on with the sport back home. When the time came for him to pick a new duty station, he chose an infantry brigade in Fort Knox, Kentucky that was getting set to deploy to Afghanistan.
Once the papers came through saying he was officially being assigned to the Bluegrass State, putting him less than an hour’s drive from Churchill Downs, Simms leaned into the opportunity and began reaching out to trainers about the possibility of gaining the experience necessary to advance his dream while simultaneously advancing his career.
“I tell people all the time, the Army made the mistake of sending me to Fort Knox,” Simms laughed. “I got close to racehorses again.”
While Thoroughbred racing is littered with those who think they want to delve into the industry only to get a rude awakening when ensconced in the unyielding nature of the business, the discipline embedded in Simms as a result of his background caught the attention of one of the sport’s more heralded barns. Louisville native Dale Romans, who earned the Eclipse Award in 2012 as the nation’s outstanding trainer, had a member of his staff at the time in Tari Hendrickson who herself had family in the military.
She responded to Simms’ email by telling him he was free to report to Romans' training center in Goshen once he reported for duty.
“On the weekends and even sometimes during the week, because I didn’t have to be in the office until like 9 a.m., I would get up at 4 a.m. drive up there to Goshen, train horses in the morning, take a shower, throw on my uniform, and go to work,” Simms recalled. “And when I got back from Afghanistan (in 2014), I started thinking ‘I can do this.’”
Over the course of the next four years, Simms would establish himself as an assistant to Romans while also holding down a job at GE (General Electric), heading to the barn before work and helping to hone the likes of such proteges as Travers Stakes winner Keen Ice, fellow Grade 1 winners Brody’s Cause and Free Drop Billy, and future top sire Not This Time. Though horsemanship had long been a part of his DNA, getting to be around top-level runners and learning how to develop them into such was an invaluable piece of the puzzle Simms couldn’t get enough of.
“He’s got the work ethic of a military man. He got to see a lot of things, a lot of good horses and figure out what he needed to do,” Romans said of Simms. “The horse stuff isn’t brain surgery and a smart guy like Mark can learn all of that pretty quick. It’s all the stuff around it that can be difficult, but he seems to have a good knack for that. A lot of people show up thinking they love horses when what they really like is horse racing, and those can be two different things. And Mark obviously has a love for the horse. It really seems like it has enriched his life.”
Days before the 2017 Preakness Stakes, Simms’s grandfather Michael Nelson – the one who told him he needed to walk on his own if he wanted to join him in the barn - passed away. Soon after, Simms decided the time had come for him to take his most definitive solo steps yet.
“When he passed, I was like, man I have to at least give it a shot,” Simms said.
Despite the fact the foundations of the sport were built on the backs of the African-American community, many of the racist ideologies that drove Black horsemen out during the Jim Crow era still resonate to this day. Where Black jockeys and trainers once reigned over the sport’s greatest prizes – with Black reinsmen winning 15 of the Kentucky Derby's first 28 runnings and Hall of Famers like Ed Brown among the most accomplished horsemen of his time – the opportunity to have an opportunity is something that remains scarce for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color individuals in Thoroughbred racing.
It is something Simms doesn’t like to dwell on but also can’t help but be aware of ever since he took the leap and began training on his own in 2017, becoming one of few Black trainers currently in the sport. About three years ago, he gained the support of historic Calumet Farm as his main client, a relationship that has been fruitful ever since Simms claimed a son of Candy Ride (ARG) by the name of Kaziranga off them in 2019 and went on to earn his first Churchill Downs win with the gelding two starts later.
Surreal as it is that he is on the same Calumet email list as the Todd Pletchers and Chad Browns of the world, Simms knows he shoulders a different kind of burden every time he walks into a paddock to saddle one of his own.
“Whenever I have someone new or a buddy come to town, I always show them the (Kentucky Derby) mural at Churchill Downs and how it started as all Black trainers and all Black jockeys and how we transitioned away from it,” Simms said. “It does weigh on me. I’m always thinking about maybe I can open a door for someone else and show people that we can still do it.
“I’m a firm believer that I’m an opportunity or a horse away from things taking off. But with young people in the sport in general, unless someone knows your name or you’re intertwined, you don’t get as many opportunities as some of the other folks,” Simms continued. “Another thing is a lot of people are comfortable with folks who look like them and unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of Black owners. It’s hard, it’s a challenge. But I do see a glimmer in some of these older Black grooms. They see me and say, ‘Oh you’re a trainer?’ I can see a light in their eyes. I can see the hope.”
They also see genuine potential. In 2023, Simms saddled 78 starters who earned more than $400,000, both career highs. His current equine roster numbers at a dozen and, if he could get the stars to align just so, he would like to pick up a couple more claiming outfits, get his number of trainees up to the 30-40 range, and start making some real noise with the 2-year-olds in his care.
“I don’t think I would want to be like those guys who have 200-300 horses,” he said. “Those guys do a phenomenal job, but I would prefer quality over quantity just because I want to be hands on.”
“His history with horses is equal to his passion for them. We are certain he will be a major player in American horse racing going forward,” Calumet Farm added in a statement.
With added time and chances will come more positive numbers. Regardless of the statistics, however, it is evident Simms is flourishing.
When his wife went into labor with their second child, the timing was such that they both agreed to swing by his barn on the way to the hospital to make sure the other youngsters dependent on him were well situated.
“And then on the way home, we stopped at the barn and brought the baby into the barn and made sure everything was good,” Simms said.
For the better part of the last decade, things couldn’t be much better for Simms. He has manifested the position in life he always dreamt for himself.
And he couldn’t be more at ease.
“I've had several opportunities to do other things, but the horses have been my passion, and I wake up every day and thank the good Lord that I get to pursue my passion,” he said. “I think there are a lot of really good horse trainers out here that just don't have the athletes. I’m just hoping some of us can get some more opportunities.”
From the backstretch to the big stage - Louisiana native Lonnie Briley with Triple Crown hopeful Coal Battle in profile
Each year, the Triple Crown season features at least one underdog story, a horse that seems to come out of nowhere to make a splash in the run-up to these three classic races. This little guy may be new to the broader public, but for those who live and breathe racing, theirs is a familiar name, someone known for their passion for the horses and for the sport. Their star horse may bring new attention to this familiar face, but really, the success of that Triple Crown horse is the by-product of decades of the trainer’s devotion to their craft.
For Lonnie Briley, the success of Coal Battle, his Triple Crown hopeful owned by Robbie Norman of Norman Stables, is the culmination of his years as the commiserate horseman. From roping horses to farm trainer to his new role as the man behind one of this year’s leading three-year-olds, Coal Battle is the result of a lifetime working with equine athletes and the end result of his training program, his emphasis on finding standout athletes at certain price points and then cultivating the individual to maximize their talents.
For this Louisiana native, being on the Triple Crown trail is definitely a new sensation. Derby dreaming has not really been on his radar during his nearly forty-year career. “I never thought I'd have one,” Briley shared. “I mean, that was out of the picture, to have that quality of a horse.”
This storybook season has focused more attention than ever on this easygoing conditioner who has mostly flown under the radar throughout his time on the racetrack. Though he has made horses and racing his life, Briley’s background did not make pursuing the sport an inevitability. Born in Opelousas, Louisiana, home of Evangeline Downs racetrack, his father Lionel worked in the oil fields and his mother Robbie was a nurse. Even though his uncle Ronald Bradley was a quarter-horse trainer, Briley got his exposure to horses in a different forum.
“I was into rodeoing when I was younger, and I liked to rope. So that’s, I guess, where the horses started,” he recalled. “My interest was always in horses. I liked to know what made them tick and how they thought and stuff like that. It’s been a self-taught experience throughout my life.”
Decades later, roping is still a part of Briley’s life. His son Lance and grandson Noah were competitive ropers, and Noah went to the National High School finals. His family has even participated in the World Series of Team Roping. “Yeah, it’s just something we like to do,” Briley laughed.
Like his father, he went to work in Louisiana’s oil fields after high school, working as a tool pusher while also breaking and training Thoroughbreds on the side. Briley’s reputation as a horseman caught the attention of John Franks, owner of Franks Petroleum in Shreveport, Louisiana. When the oil field he was working at shut down, the Louisiana native got a surprising offer. “Mr. Franks called me one night and asked me if I'd go [to work for him]. He asked me about the oil field, what I did. I said I was a tool pusher. He said, ‘Do you want to come work for me?’ I said, ‘Yes.’” Briley recalled. “Mr. Franks, he was a geologist by trade. And so, he was very familiar with the oil field. But he had, heck, 700 something mares at that time. Stallions and racehorses. He was the biggest owner in the country. So, I went. It was a good experience. It was fun.”
The oilman had entered racing in the late 1970s, buying Alta’s Lady, an unraced Louisiana-bred broodmare who went on to produce several stakes-winning foals. Franks then went all in on breeding and racing Thoroughbreds; when he passed away in 2003, he had more than 500 horses, including 120 horses with various trainers around the country. Four times he won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Owner and led North America in wins six times and in earnings five times. In addition, Franks was a nine-time leading breeder by wins in the 1980s and 1990s. He owned farms in Ocala, Florida, and in Shreveport, where Briley went to work as farm trainer in 1991.
There, he did a little bit of everything, handling stallions, breeding and foaling out mares, breaking young horses, and more. Working day in and day out with Thoroughbreds prompted Briley to add a unique feature to his office: “I had actually put a skeleton together and glued it and wired it together from a horse. Mr. Frank said, ‘What's you doing with that?’ I said, ‘Well, if the horse got a problem, I can show you where it's at.’ He said, ‘Well, you got it in the office.’ I said, ‘Well, it don't eat anything.’” Briley laughed. That skeleton is indicative of the trainer’s philosophy on horses, his goal to learn everything about horses to catch issues before they become problems and to assess each horse as an individual, watching how they move and think so he can place them in the best spot possible.
It was Briley’s eye for talent that led Franks to one of his most successful horses, Answer Lively. A colt by graded stakes winner Lively One, his dam Twosies Answer was also a stakes winner, but had not been a good producer to that point.
“They actually had that colt scheduled to go to the Arkansas sale. I don't want to say a cold sale, but not really a strong sale. But I looked at this little colt in the past, and I foaled him out and everything,” Briley recalled. “He was really a nice colt. He was a little high tail set horse and big blaze face, but he was really athletic and everything. I called Mr. Franks' office, and I said, ‘This horse, we're going to scratch him, and he don't need to go to that sale.’ He said, ‘Well, Lonnie, his mama hadn't produced anything.’ I said, ‘Well, she did this year,’ I said, ‘This is a nice colt.’”
Briley’s instincts were right. Answer Lively won the 1998 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and then the Eclipse for Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. At three, he was second in the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby and then became Franks’s third and final Kentucky Derby starter, finishing 10th behind Charismatic in 1999.
With his long-time boss gone, Briley focused on training full-time, staying in Louisiana since he primarily had Louisiana breds and running in the state was more lucrative than going elsewhere. He had taken out his trainer’s license in his 20s, but did not focus on training full time until Franks’s death in 2003. In the two decades since, this former tool pusher has built a reputation on his eye for horses as well as his honesty, both of which have led him to newfound heights in the sport. Add in his loyal team of employees and a steadfast owner in his corner, and it becomes this newfound attention on this stalwart horseman is long overdue.
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Since going out on his own, Briley has focused on racing in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas with occasional incursions to Keeneland and Kentucky Downs. When he struck out on his own, “I had five, six, seven horses, and I get there early in the morning and walk my walkers, clean my stalls, fix my feet buckets, and sign up my horses, and wait on the exercise rider. And I was by myself. And then I think when I got up to 11, I said, ‘Man, I got to get some help.’ But I remember them days. That was tough.”
Currently, Briley has about 30 horses divided between his barns in Louisiana and at Oaklawn Park, where Coal Battle has spent the winter preparing for the Triple Crown season. In his home state, his horses stay at Copper Crowne in Opelousas, an equestrian center that offers lay-up and rehab facilities as well as a 6 ½-furlong training track and on-site veterinary clinic. There, his team breaks young horses and prepares them for the racetrack while also caring for any horses that need a break or are recovering from an injury.
The Briley barn has ten employees, including his assistant trainer and primary exercise rider, former jockey Bethany Taylor, daughter of the late Remi Gunn, who also rode competitively; his assistant at Evangeline Downs, Raymundo Marin; and his assistant at Copper Crowne, Daisy Cox. Each of his grooms works with about six horses, including Reyes Perez, the man in charge of stable star Coal Battle. At the heart of Briley’s program is the idea that horses are individuals; rather than using the same approach to feeding or training for each athlete, the trainer prefers to tailor routines to the specific horse.
As Taylor observes about her boss, “he's pretty good about treating each horse as an individual. There's some trainers that have success with putting all their horses on the same routine, like a cookie-cutter operation. And that works for people. But also, he takes into consideration each horse's needs and personalities and stuff like that.”
Each will get “a little breakfast in the morning, maybe half a scoop of feed, just put something in their stomach in case a horse has a little ulcerated stomach or something,” Briley shared. “Then after that, before 10:00, I like for them to eat. Because the morning of the race, you're trying to feed them early, and then you're changing their routine. So as soon as I can feed their groceries, I'm going to feed them. And they like that because they're going to eat their belly full, and they might have one or two bites left, and they're going to go in the corner, and we leave them alone.”
When it comes to their exercise routine, Briley assesses each horse’s temperament and then goes from there. “He watches them. And so, if a horse is lazy and not really getting on the muscle or anything, he might back off of them a little bit, jog them, and let them freshen up,” Taylor observed. “He does try to keep everybody pretty much on a work schedule in that sense. But as far as everyday training and stuff or prepping them for a race, it'll 100% depend on that horse at that time and where they're at.”
His preferred time between starts also takes the individual into account. “I think four weeks, five weeks is plenty of time, almost on the crunch of being too much, really,” Briley shared. “So around four weeks, I think, because when they're fresh and they try hard and the horses that want to win, they'll give you everything they got. If you start crushing on them too much, running them too close too many times, well, sooner or later, they're going to take a race for themselves and say, ‘Hey, this is too much.’ Because I think horses got minds and feelings, and they think, too.”
Coal Battle, for example, has had four to five weeks between starts since his debut at Evangeline in late July. To prepare the colt for each start, he will go for “those little short works, [which] you can do them closer and more often. You're opening the lungs, and that's what you want. A lot of circulation in the lungs, a lot of blood flow, a lot of air. You want room. And I usually will work mine a half mile, five-eighths. Very seldom, I'll work a horse three-quarters. Before their races, four or five days, I'll blow them three-eighths.”
Briley’s focus for Coal Battle, as for all of his horses, is to “keep them happy, keep them fit. And he works regular, believe me. I mean, he works on a regular schedule, and all my horses do. And I tell the riders, ‘Don't be scared to use them.’ They’re fit. But that's the thing, watching your horses, because they'll more or less tell you everything if you are paying attention.”
His program has room for all horses, whether they run short or long, though he does tend to lean more toward routers. "To each his own, but I like route horses, but they have to have speed,” Briley observed. “A route horse, just a plodder, they'll just gallop all day long and don't go nowhere. I think fast horses can go far. I love to give a horse a chance to run on a turf. I love to give a horse a chance to run far. Now, if he's bred to run four and a half, five furlongs, and after that, he spits a bit, well, he ain't going nowhere. But if a horse, he works :35, going three-eighths, and gallops out in :47, a lot of them will just keep going.”
He also does not discriminate when it comes to the surface. The veteran trainer likes to put his horses “wherever they fit. I love to run turf horses, but I love the dirt, too. And I mean, I got horses like Coal Battle and Go Captain and a few others. They'll run on the gravel road. But it doesn't matter to me. It's where they're comfortable and where they like to run.”
Then, when problems arise, Briley will “address the problem pretty aggressively, whatever it is, if it's bowed tendons or ankles or knees. And then time. Horses need time to recuperate and stuff. There's different methods we use for each individual problem.” Since he is on the road quite a bit, the horses will then go to Daisy Cox at Copper Crowne to recuperate.
Mark Norman, one of the two brothers that make up Norman Stables, Briley’s sole owner shared that the veteran trainer is “very cautious on injuries and always wants to do right by the horse by giving them the time off they need or backing off on their training. He's never going to rush one through an injury or anything. He wants to be extra cautious and make sure they heal and everything's right on the horse.”
Assistant trainer Bethany Taylor echoes that, adding “it's always disappointing when you have something go wrong in the barn. But he really does try to handle everything with patience, and he knows so much. He just knows so much. And if we ever have one that's just maybe not necessarily injured, but just done racing, they just have lost their desire to be racehorses anymore, he's got a couple of people that he'll give them to so that they can be rode and rehomed as jumpers or barrel racers or just anything to give them another home.”
Not only is he patient with his horses, but also with his employees, preferring to teach when the opportunity arises. “He is particular about how he wants things done. But, if you mess up and you don't quite understand what he's wanting from you, he'll explain it to you. He's not a very aggressive type of person. He'll sit you down and explain it to you. So, you can learn a lot from him,” Taylor shared.
His patience also extends to preparing young horses for their jobs as racehorses, especially the yearlings they pick up at sales. “He'll bring them home and give them 30, 45 days if they need it. And then they'll start back easy jogging and stuff, and we won't even get them at the track. We won't get them in from the training center until they're ready to really start back training again. They'll get legged up at the training center before we even get them.”
Then, as Briley shared, “in September, we'll break them and start jogging them and stuff. And I'll usually jog them the first 30 days. We'll go through the gates with them as soon as we can, just walk them in and then out, so it's just another thing for them. Then we'll start galloping and usually, depending on the horse, after close to 90 days and so we'll start giving them little clips, and I'll clip them probably twice a week, like a sixteenth, and then I'll build it up to an eighth and then a quarter. And then after that, I'll go once a week and then just build them up to three eighths and a half.”
Generally, the veteran trainer will start his two-year-olds around September. He will try them on the turf as he did with Coal Battle. After breaking his maiden on dirt, Briley sent the colt to Kentucky Downs, where he made a strong showing in the Kentucky Juvenile Mile Stakes. “He was way out of it. He'd come flying. And he run forth. When he crossed the line, two jumps, he was in front, and galloped out five, six lengths in front of the winners,” Briley remembered. “Right there, I knew there was more to the horse than what I expected from day one.”
Coal Battle is a long way from the horses that the veteran started his career with, a sign that the integrity and devotion he has been known for in his native Louisiana have brought him to a new level in the sport he loves.
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After his tenure with John Franks ended, Briley got his start with “cheaper claiming horses, $5,000 claimers, and things like that, $10,000 claimers. Then some of the breeders, they'd raise babies, and then they'd hope they'd be for charity babies to run in a little five furlong [race] for charities and things like that.”
Not quite a decade later, the veteran horseman met brothers Mark and Robbie Norman of Norman Stables. The pair were new to racing and looking for a trainer. They chose Copper Crowne for its proximity to their homes in southern Alabama and went through the center’s seven barns talking to different trainers, their goal to find the right person to start their fledgling stable with. Briley, in his characteristic joking manner, said, “They made a mistake and came back to my barn.”
“They asked me if I would buy them a few horses, and I said, ‘Yeah.’ And we started from there. Started with two or three horses and ended up with 30.”
Their entry into racing came during a tough time for Robbie. “I [had] recently went through a divorce. I will say me and my ex-wife, we get along wonderfully now. She's the biggest fan of Coal Battle, so all that works out good in the end also. But you're searching for something because you really didn't want the divorce, and you're asking yourself, ‘How did I end up in this spot?’” Norman remembered. “I was actually at an apartment in downtown Thomasville trying to figure out where I was going to move next and looking for a new home. I was just flipping through the channels one night, and I think the race is wrong, so I watched a race or two. Then that documentary [on 2012 Belmont Stakes winner Union Rags] come up, and so I watched the full documentary, and it hit me right there that I'm going to buy me a racehorse. I'm going to go and do something fun and, like I say, do a little traveling and do something that you can win a victory in.”
The brothers own a series of grocery stores in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia, fulfilling a dream that their father, a Southern Baptist minister, had as a young man. Major brain surgery in his 20s left the patriarch disabled, but Robbie followed in his footsteps after graduating with an accounting degree from Troy University. His first job in a grocery warehouse gave Norman the experience and connections that allowed the pair to start their company. Their success has enabled Robbie to pursue owning a stable with Mark, who has had an interest in horses since childhood and currently works with barrel racers. Both of his daughters are competitive barrel riders themselves while Robbie’s two sons, Drew and Nathan, root for their dad’s horses. Drew also accompanies his dad and Briley when they travel to sales around the region.
Sales are Norman Stables’ preferred method of acquiring horses, though Robbie has bred a couple of his former mares to sires like Dr. Schivel and star Coal Battle’s sire Coal Front. “I prefer to buy. The breeding is a long-term process, and then they can have conformation issues. I truly will never be a major breeder. I really like to go and buy an athlete.”
Briley and Norman both go for sales over breeding. The experience the veteran horseman gained working for John Franks allowed him to develop an eye for the right physique. Finding that horse, though, is where the work comes in. “I love going to a sale, but I'm glad to leave. Because if you work a sale, it's a lot of work. You might look at 200 horses and then try to cut it down at three or four. It's a lot,” Briley shared.
“I look in a book, and I love new sires, and I love first foals,” he continued. “A mare, if she ran fine, and if she didn't run, she has to have pedigree. But I love the first or second foal. First foal is my favorite. But the first five foals in a mare, if she hadn't produced a runner, her chances are slim and none. She can throw a minor stakes horse in the first five foals, and she can be 20 years old and throw a millionaire. It's just statistics. I look for genetic crosses, and then a stallion that went the route of ground but had a ton of speed. I love Grade 1 horses and stuff, but they don't have to be.”
Whether he is at the sales with his trainer or watching from home, Robbie Norman goes for the physique over pedigree. “I'm more physical at times, and I like to see how they move, their smoothness and their moving,” he shared. “Now, Lonnie, he adds he knows more about the pedigree, and he sees things in the pedigree, and he's just got a ton of knowledge. I allow him to really take the lead. Deal with the pedigree part. I'm more of just looking for the athlete and everything.”
Additionally, Norman focuses on acquiring regional-bred horses over Kentucky breds. The reason is simple: money. “Any time we go to a sale, I'm looking for the Arkansas bred, the Oklahoma bred, that's the first thing in the book that I'm looking at, because I really want to identify and try to get the best regional bread horse that I can. Financially, that is where you can make the most money on a budget like we have,” he observed.”
“If you're in Louisiana, you can race just against Louisiana breds. In Texas, you can race just against Texas breds. And that way, it really gives you a better shot at winning a stakes race,” the owner shared. When Briley went to the Texas Thoroughbred Association Yearling Sale in 2023, he and Norman’s other trainer Jayde Gelner went looking for regional breds. Gelner came away with Secret Faith, a stakes-winning Louisiana-bred filly by Aurelius Maximus; Briley went against type and came away with a Kentucky-bred by Coal Front.
The trainer liked the colt right away and kept coming back to him throughout the lead-up to the sale. “I liked his confirmation. He had a good walk, good shoulder, good hip, long neck on him, and really a good head on him. He was the first foal out of a mare, a Midshipman mare, which I like a lot,” Briley remembered. “I like the bloodline. And then, genetically, if you look close, in the fifth, sixth generation, he goes back to Seattle Slew six times.” Though he had three horses on his short list, the trainer shared his interest in the Coal Front colt, hip 263.
Unable to travel with Briley, Norman bid online, knowing that “there's no other horse that Lonnie likes. I'm just clicking away thinking, $35,000, I'm going to get him. And then at 40, around $40,000, it came down, you could tell, to the Internet, which was me, and somebody else. They were pointing just at one person. And so, I just kept bidding. I said, ‘Eventually, I'm going to get Lonnie this horse.” He likes him.’”
“Next thing you know, I done bid up to $70,000, which was way over our budget, and he was not a Louisiana-bred. But at the end of the day, I guess sometimes, it's not what you plan to happen at that sale, but it's all turned out wonderful.”
Wonderful is an understatement. Coal Battle has taken the Normans and Briley’s team to places they never expected.
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Now on the precipice of a Triple Crown campaign for the first time, Briley and Norman find themselves in an unexpected place. After decades of racing under the radar, they are preparing Coal Battle for a stage that neither has experienced before. With the first Saturday in May right around the corner, the pair have been thinking about their approach to the five-week gauntlet that is the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes.
After breaking his maiden in his debut at Evangeline Downs in late July, Coal Battle has since racked up four more victories in seven starts, including a win in the Springboard Mile at Remington Park, the Jean Laffite at Delta Downs, and the Smarty Jones and the Grade 2 Rebel at Oaklawn Park. His Rebel victory also gave Briley his first graded stakes victory – which felt “good, like going to a good rope” according to the 72-year-old trainer – and put the colt square in the conversation for the Kentucky Derby. Not only has Norman fielded offers for the colt, which he has turned down, preferring to keep things simple and leaving their current team intact, but also Briley, assistant Bethany Taylor, and the Norman brothers have had racing media knocking on their doors, a new sensation for team Coal Battle.
“I have people come up to me and say, ‘Hey, Lonnie, congratulations on all this.’ And I just shake hands and say, ‘Thank you.’ But I couldn't name them,” Briley laughed. “It's so many people more or less rooting for the little man, and you hate to let them down. It feels good.”
Taylor, who is not only Coal Battle’s primary exercise rider but also one of the people who knows the colt best, echoed her boss’s sentiments: “We appreciate everybody's support. Everybody's excited for them, and they're rooting so much for us. And we love it, and we're just like, ‘Man, we hope he lives up to everybody's expectations.’”
As they count down to the Run for the Roses, Briley’s plan for the three classics is simple. “I'd like to go early enough where I could get a couple of works of Churchill on that track before the Derby,” the trainer shared. “If he runs good, even if he doesn't win it, he runs, let's say, in the top three or something like that, he will probably still go to the Preakness and see what happens there. It's a little short, and it's usually a smaller field, about half. And then we'll see.”
Norman, for his part, trusts his trainer’s judgement for Coal Battle’s path through the Triple Crown. “I'm never going to push for it. If Lonnie says he went through a long campaign and he gets third in the Derby and Lonnie makes that decision that he needs rest, he will rest,” Norman said. “If Lonnie makes that decision that he thinks that he can move forward from, say, a good placing in the Derby, and do good in the Preakness, we will go. And that's a relief on me, going back to Lonnie. All those decisions are one hundred percent his, and we're going to back him all the way.”
That trust that Robbie Norman has in his trainer, one built out of a dozen years of working together as well as the friendship that Briley has built with the brothers as well as their families, comes not only from the expertise of a man who has spent his life with horses but also from the honesty that underpins every move that the trainer makes. It is his honesty and enthusiasm for the equine athletes that make Lonnie Briley easy to root for as he faces his biggest challenge yet.
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Throughout this storybook season with Coal Battle, Lonnie Briley, Robbie Norman, and the teams behind them have been thrust into the spotlight, a new sensation for all involved. Any discussion about the veteran trainer comes back to his deep knowledge of the equine athlete and his honesty as well as his good-natured approach to life.
“Lonnie is very thorough, old-school. He doesn't let much get past him, and he'll always comment on how many bones are in the body of a horse. He knows a horse very, very well,” Mark Norman shared. “He shares a lot of information and goes over everything really good with you. Just very honest and upfront.”
After working with him for 15 years, Bethany Taylor knows her boss pretty well and will sing his praises when given the opportunity. “He's probably forgotten more stuff than most people know as far as when it comes to just knowing a horse. And you can always count on him being completely honest with you,” she observed. “If the horse isn't what you thought it was or something happens with the horse because they're just so delicate, he's not ever going to not tell you something because you might not like what's happened.”
At the same time, while he does run a tight ship, “the energy is really light and happy, and we joke a lot,” the long-time assistant shared. “I gallop in jock boots, but I wear Western boots to the barn in the morning to work in in the shed row, and I'll go to put my jock boots on to gallop in the morning, and there'll be candy wrappers in them. He's super playful, just the same that you guys get when you're interviewing him.”
For Robbie Norman, who had enough faith and trust in Lonnie Briley to exceed his usual budget to buy what has become a springtime sensation, the trainer is more than someone he works with: he is a friend. “Number one, Lonnie's just a good person. Everybody in my family likes Lonnie. He's so nice to us. I'm his only owner at the present time. I think he likes that. That forms a good relationship,” Norman shared. “We talk every day, whether it's about $5,000 claimers or whether it's about going to the Kentucky Derby, he does let me be involved. We discuss it. Usually, we come up with the best plan possible. Ultimately, he's the decision maker.”
Briley’s devotion to his equine athletes shows in how he conducts himself day in and day out, his focus always on the individuals in his stalls. “He's just 100% dedicated. And when Lonnie makes the comment that it's an eight-day-a-week job, 60 hours or 40 hours a day, he's not joking,” Norman shared. “At 72 years old, he's there at 4:00 in the morning, he's there at 8:00 at night. The dedication of what he's put into his craft is something very few people ever achieve in their life.”
The white-haired, soft-spoken Briley remains the same ardent horseman he was as a young man breaking babies and as a farm trainer building a horse skeleton and memorizing the 216 bones that form the foundation of these athletes. The Louisiana native almost seems ageless, his good nature and ability to crack a result of the eternal hope at the heart of horse racing. “Sometimes I say, ‘One of these days, you're going to have to retire,’” the trainer laughed. “Retire and do what? I've been on the road so long and so much, and I don't know if I can. But I guess I could rustle up a rope horse. He'd probably turn and look at me and say, ‘You're not serious.’”
In Lonnie Briley’s case, a horse like Coal Battle is all the fuel he needs to stick at it even in his eighth decade: “A good horse keeps you going. You know what I mean?”
The legacy Storm Cat has left on the Triple Crown series
By Alicia Hughes
storm cat - Keeneland Library Raftery Turfotos Collection
They hit the wire in unison beneath one of the most recognizable backdrops in all of sports, a trio of equine athletes calling upon the entirety of their pedigrees and fitness to try and claim the most career-defining of prizes. One, an industry blood blue who had sold for a seven-figure price befitting his breeding. Another, a budding international star carrying with him the aspirations of a country in addition to the 126 pounds on his back.
The one whose nose ultimately landed in front happened to be the most overlooked member of the indefatigable threesome, a colt from a seemingly modest background who produced a result most deemed an upset. The lens of hindsight can reveal many truths in the aftermath, however. And given the enduring influence of a certain stalwart in his sire line, Mystik Dan’s victory in the 2024 Kentucky Derby (Gr.1) over regally bred Sierra Leone and Japan-based Forever Young proved to be the continuation of a legacy that is still gaining strength decades after its initial impact.
In the 30 years that he graced the Thoroughbred industry with his presence, William T. Young’s homebred Grade 1 winner Storm Cat managed to put himself in the conversation as one of the all-time game-changing stallions, both in terms of his impact on the commercial marketplace and prolific output by his offspring on the track. Commanding a stud fee as high as $500,000 at his peak, the son of Storm Bird out of Terlingua twice led the general sire list, producing eight champions, 110 graded stakes winners, more than $129 million in progeny earnings, and 91 yearlings that sold for $1 million or more at public auction.
tabasco cat - storm cat’s only son to win a classic
Included in Storm Cat’s litany of top runners was Tabasco Cat - his only son to win a Triple Crown race. He won two - with the 1994 runnings of the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Then came champion Storm Flag Flying, and European champion Giant’s Causeway, the latter of whom held the mantle as his best son at stud. While he built a resume that rewrote records in the stud book, one of the few milestones missing for the dark bay stallion was the fact he never sired a horse who captured the Kentucky Derby, the 1 ¼-mile classic that stands the most famous test in Thoroughbred racing.
Despite not having one of his own wear the roses, Storm Cat’s impact on the first Saturday in May has exponentially grown in the years since his passing in 2013. When Mystik Dan won a three-horse photo beneath the Twin Spires of Churchill Downs to annex the 150th edition of the race, he became the fourth Kentucky Derby winner in the last seven years to trace their sire line to the former Overbrook Farm flagship stallion.
The trend got kicked off when Justify, by Storm Cat’s great grandson, Scat Daddy, triumphed in the 2018 Kentucky Derby en route to sweeping the Triple Crown. Since that time, much of Storm Cat’s Derby influence has been due to the overwhelming success of six-time leading sire Into Mischief, who is by Storm Cat’s grandson Harlan’s Holiday. Into Mischief himself sired back-to-back Kentucky Derby winners in Authentic (2020) and Mandaloun (2021) and is the sire of fellow Spendthrift Farm stallion Goldencents, who counts Mystik Dan as his first classic winner.
Having already hit many of the hallmarks that define truly great stallions, those who helped craft Storm Cat’s career are especially heartened by the fact that he is now definitively shaping the outcome of the race that most requires the rarified combination of stamina, speed, and mettle.
Ric Waldman
“(The Kentucky Derby influence) certainly has not been unnoticed by me, although I’m pleasantly surprised with how it has carried through,” said bloodstock consultant Ric Waldman, who managed Storm Cat's stud career for Overbrook. “I mean, that’s the real mark of a successful sire: how long can his line continue to go. When you look at the level that these sons and grandsons and great grandsons of Storm Cat have reached, you realize there is something in that Storm Cat blood. Now, how do you define it? I’ve never been able to. But it’s real. There is something in those genes that just comes through.”
When the list of Triple Crown nominees was announced for 2025, the odds of the Storm Cat line adding to its recent run of Kentucky Derby achievements could have easily been installed as the shortest price.
The two stallions represented by the highest number of offspring nominated to the classics were the aforementioned Into Mischief (21), and Taylor Made Farm stallion Not This Time (14), a son of Giant’s Causeway. As the Kentucky Derby prep season heated up, the pair indeed had their sons stamp themselves as leading contenders for the 10-furlong test with Into Mischief having juvenile champion Citizen Bull, Florida Derby (Gr.1) hero Tappan Street, and Fountain of Youth Stakes (Gr.2) victor Sovereignty while Not This Time boasted Jeff Ruby Steaks (Gr.3) winner Final Gambit and Risen Star (Gr.2) winner Magnitude, who unfortunately was knocked off the Derby trail due to injury.
Adding to the breadth and depth of the Storm Cat sire line this Triple Crown season is Justify producing Virginia Derby winner American Promise and Drefong, another great grandson of Storm Cat, having UAE Derby (G2) winner Admire Daytona (JPN).
Though his name is now synonymous with success at the highest level of Thoroughbred racing and breeding, Storm Cat had a decidedly unglamorous start to his stud career. His precocity was undisputable, having prevailed in the 1985 Young American Stakes (Gr.1) before finishing second by a nose to Tasso in that year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (Gr.1). But after just two starts during his sophomore season, injury ended his on-track career, and he entered stud at Overbrook for a $30,000 fee.
The fact he was able to make himself into an industry legend without the benefit of an elite book of mares in the first part of his stallion career was indicative of the innate quality housed beneath his coal-colored frame. Fittingly, two of the stallions who are currently pushing the sire line forward into classic territory followed virtually the same script.
“It’s in the makeup of the blood that Storm Cat made it in spite of everything else not going his way as far as establishing himself as a successful stallion,” Waldman said. “That’s the true makings of a stallion."
Not This Time
As the dark bay horse sauntered down the path from the stallion complex and paraded for breeders during Taylor Made Farm’s January stallion open house, those who were fortunate enough to see his grandsire in the flesh couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu.
not this time - jon seigel / pm advertising
From a physical standpoint, Not This Time morphs more into Storm Cat’s doppelganger with every passing year – a near carbon copy, save for having four white feet instead of two. The similarity extends well beyond the resemblance, however, as he also mirrors his grandfather in both his abbreviated career, blue-collar ascent, and versatility of runners.
not this time
Trained by Dale Romans for Albaugh Family Stables, Not This Time came into the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile as the race favorite off a scintillating triumph in the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes at Churchill Downs. Like his grandsire, he would come painfully close to victory. Where Storm Cat had a clear lead in the stretch of his Breeders’ Cup outing only to get nailed on the wire, Not This Time was the one doing the chasing over the Santa Anita Park stretch, putting in a determined rally that fell a neck short of eventual divisional champion Classic Empire.
A soft tissue injury discovered in his right front shortly after the Breeders’ Cup would end Not This Time’s career, and he commanded just $15,000 in his first initial season at stud. Though circumstances didn’t allow him to show his full racing potential, the brilliance he inherited from his sire line wasted no time showing up once his runners started hitting the track.
In 2020, he was the third-leading freshman sire by progeny earnings and by 2022, he was in the top 10 on the general sire list. That same season, his son Epicenter, who captured the Grade 1 Travers Stakes and ran second as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby, would become his first champion when he earned the Eclipse Award for champion 3-year-old male.
“We were optimistic but, in this business, you never know where the next great stallion will come from,” Ben Taylor, president of Taylor Made Stallions, said of Not This Time, who currently stands for $175,000. “But he had all the credentials, and we were just lucky to get him.
“Looking back, I remember everyone was obviously devastated when he was injured and couldn’t go on with his career. But if he didn’t have his injury, we might not have ever been in a position to get him, so their bad luck was actually maybe fortunate for us. Strictly from a financial standpoint, it was probably a windfall because it allowed him to go to stud early and achieve what he’s done at a very young age.”
Into Mischief
Twenty years after Storm Cat began his stud career in 1987, the great grandson who would ultimately topple some of his records made his career debut when he broke his maiden at Santa Anita. He would never finish worse than second and captured the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity in his third start. Ultimately, though, injury too would cut Into Mischief’s career short after just six starts, leaving owner Spendthrift Farm with the challenge of how to get enough numbers in his book when he stood his initial season for $12,500 in 2009.
into mischief
“I think we’d all be lying if we said we zeroed in and said, ‘It’s got to be this, it’s got to be that (with regards to the matings)’. Early on it was, we would take what we could get as far as mares,” said Ned Toffey, general manager of Spendthrift Farm. “But it is not uncommon for a stallion to start off with a modest book of mares both in terms of numbers and quality. Those exceptional stallions seem to prove over and over that they can overcome that, and he’s certainly done it. Even with the small books, he was doing remarkable things.”
As the annals of meteoric rises, Into Mischief is due the heftiest of chapters. In 2012, the same year his fee had dipped to $7,500, he would end up third on the freshman sire list and notch his first graded stakes winner when Goldencents took the Grade 3 Delta Jackpot that November.
In 2013, the half-brother to Hall of Famer Beholder would have a pair of Kentucky Derby starters in Goldencents and Vyjack with the former also becoming his first of what is now eight Breeders’ Cup winners when he annexed that year’s Dirt Mile. Into Mischief would begin his now six-year reign atop the general sire list in 2019 and last year became the first stallion to surpass $30 million in progeny earnings in a single season.
“I remember after Into Mischief hit with his first crop, I look back and always ask myself, ‘What did I miss?’,” Waldman said. “Is he truly a fluke that I wouldn't have caught, or did I overlook this? And in Into Mischief’s case, I missed it. But I’m not even sure Spendthrift saw he could be as good as he was, so you have to give credit to that sire line.”
With the ascent of Into Mischief and Not That Time, as well as the exploits of the late Scat Daddy, the sire line has in fact evolved from being known as primarily a speed influence into one that can inject stamina – a necessary component for 3-year-olds going the 1 ¼-miles distance in the Kentucky Derby for the first time.
Into Mischief’s ability to get top-class progeny across divisions has been well documented – from champion female sprinter Covfefe to 2024 Dubai World Cup (Gr.1) winner Laurel River. And when entries were taken for the 2024 Breeders’ Cup, Not This Time’s all-around aptitude was on full display as the 11-year-old stallion was represented by Grade 1 winning turf sprinter Cogburn and graded stakes winning marathoner, Next.
“He’s kind of done it at every level, he’s done it at any distance,” Toffey said of Into Mischief, who commands a fee of $250,000 in 2025. “He definitely leans toward being a speed sire, but he has multiple classic winners. He has demonstrated his consistency, his brilliance.”
“The versatility of a Not This Time - long, short, dirt, turf - it’s like Storm Cat himself,” added Waldman. “The Not This Times probably want to go a little farther than most of the Storm Cats did, although Giant’s Causeway clearly was a classic distance horse. As a result, you can get a horse that can run at a classic distance.”
Just as his stud career steadily gained in momentum, Storm Cat’s influence on the biggest stages shows no signs of slowing. With both Into Mischief and Not This Time having their top books of mares to date coming down the pipeline, as well as the ongoing success of the likes of Justify and Practical Joke, the days of his sire line lording over the race widely regarded as the most consequential in North America don’t figure to conclude anytime soon.
“You never get tired of seeing it, and to see it continue for this many years later…because eventually the veins should die off,” Waldman said. “We’ll see how long this goes with Storm Cat, but it is heartwarming. He helped everybody who touched his life, and everybody’s life was better for having Storm Cat.”
A new Pimlico for the Old Line state
By Alicia Hughes
Walk through the grounds of the antiquated racetrack situated on Park Heights Avenue in Baltimore and one will be inundated with reminders of the dual role the vaunted venue has held for the better part of the last decade.
Known to the public as the home of one of the most treasured jewels in Thoroughbred racing, Pimlico Race Course has also served as a microcosm for the perilous situation one of Maryland’s signature industries faced in recent times. Unmistakable in its history and contributions, it has also been achingly in need of support and restoration. And while it is a hallmark of the community it resides in, its relationship with its neighbors – much like its foundations – also needed a massive overhaul.
On May 17, the track known as Old Hilltop will host the 150th edition of its flagship race when the Preakness Stakes, the middle leg of the American Triple Crown, is contested one last time in its current incarnation. Shortly thereafter, a complete reconstruction will get underway, one that will transform both the physical structure and, pundits hope, the overall well-being of the state’s Thoroughbred racing product.
After years of uncertainty surrounding the future of Maryland racing, a wave of optimism has washed over many who rely on the industry for their livelihood thanks to a sweeping plan approved by Governor Wes Moore and the Board of Works last spring. In May 2024, an agreement to transfer ownership of Pimlico Race Course from The Stronach Group (operating as 1/ST Racing) to the State of Maryland was signed off on as well as a $400 million full renovation of Pimlico, a $10 million investment in the surrounding Park Heights community, and the creation of The Maryland Jockey Club Inc., a non-profit to operate racing in Maryland.
Under the agreement, Pimlico will become the year-round home for all Thoroughbred racing in Maryland while the state’s other Thoroughbred track, Laurel Park, will ultimately close. Laurel is still nominally owned by The Stronach Group but the Maryland Jockey Club has a 2–3-year lease to operate the track until the new Pimlico is open for live racing. By the time Laurel is eventually shuttered and redeveloped, plans call for a new year-round training center to be constructed at the current Shamrock Farm, located 20 miles from Pimlico in Carroll County.
Keeping the Preakness in Maryland had been a point of contention in recent years, and anyone who has encountered the structural issues at the track itself – from plumbing issues to broken elevators to condemned portions of the grandstand – saw it suffered from a glaring lack of commitment to investing in its future. Though The Stronach Group still controls the rights to the Preakness for 2025 and 2026, the state and the Maryland Jockey Club will gain the rights to the classic test and take over full management in 2027.
That same year is also targeted for the completion of the Pimlico renovation. While the track will still host the Preakness this May before demolition begins approximately 30 days after, the 1 3/16-miles race will move to Laurel in 2026 before making its planned return the following year to its longstanding home.
At a time when multiple racing jurisdictions – most notably Florida and California - are dealing with uneasiness about the long-term health and future of the sport, the change in ownership and emphatic support from government officials has shifted the general sentiment in Maryland for the positive. It’s a twist few would have been optimistic enough to forecast only a handful of years ago, but one that is already having a revitalizing effect.
“When I was covering Maryland five years ago, racing in the state was a solid, solid circuit but we were always wondering. We were always worried about contraction, worried about handle numbers, you always worry about what tracks could be in danger,” said Dan Illman, who was named Director of Communications of the Maryland Jockey Club after previously serving as the Midlantic-based reporter and handicapper for Daily Racing Form. “I never really felt that Laurel and Pimlico were in any sort of danger but…you walk into that press box Preakness week and you realize there is a wonderful history there but unfortunately the track is crumbling.
“To see that the Governor and the Mayor of Baltimore and everyone is so into trying to rejuvenate the sport in a way with the new Pimlico and bringing out sort of a sparkling new face to Maryland racing, it’s kind of exciting. I wasn’t sure if that would be the case five years ago but they’re going full steam ahead and they really want to promote the Preakness, sort of like having a Kentucky Derby week Preakness week with all the events and everything else.”
In addition to the investment in the racing product, state officials along with the Maryland Jockey Club, and Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority - which was created in 2023 to support the development of racing and training facilities in the state – have also prioritized pouring back into its neighborhoods and fellow businesses. In early March, a lineup of events for the inaugural Preakness Festival were announced including Maryland horse farm tours and a music festival in Park Heights honoring George "Spider" Anderson, the first African American jockey to win the Preakness Stakes.
Being a good community partner won’t just be limited to its highest profile week, however. School field trips to Laurel Park in which students get an up-close view on how the equine athletes are cared for are already becoming a regular occurrence. And on a near daily basis, Illman finds himself fielding requests for track representatives to speak at everything from libraries to schools to senior centers.
“I think it’s very important for us to get involved with members of the community…and I think it’s important for the community to know we’re not just here as a gambling establishment. We’re here as a partner in the city and the state,” Illman said.
The curiosity from the public about the industry is something many believe has always been present but lacked a proper conduit. With the new ownership and management structure in place, the state’s racing participants are now better positioned to provide answers and foster deeper connections.
“It was very clear that (community involvement) was a focal point when I came in just interviewing for the job,” said Bill Knauf, president of the Maryland Jockey Club. “The way that the law is written when the MTROA was created, Park Heights as a community can benefit if the Maryland Jockey Club becomes profitable. They receive a portion of those profits so there certainly is an incentive and close tie-in to the community. And I think being state-run facilitates that relationship to form a closer bond to the community.
“Part of it too is, what else can we use our facilities for?,” Knauf continued. “I’m sure we’ll utilize our infield for different things throughout the year whether it’s concerts or a festival or a farmer’s market – anything along those lines that constantly drives traffic through that big, beautiful new building we’ll have and at the same time, gets people coming to Park Heights.”
Necessary as it may be, change often doesn’t occur without challenges at its hip - and the Thoroughbred industry is Exhibit A of such. While Maryland racing has certainly received an injection of support and vision, there are still hurdles that must be cleared for its goal of becoming a top-class destination for both horseplayers and casual fans is realized.
Maryland tracks will run a reduced schedule of 120 race dates in 2025 and the ongoing issue of a shrinking foal crop is impacting the health of the sport in practically every jurisdiction. The Maryland Jockey Club has yet to announce board members and concrete plans for the training facility remain in the works.
Though a reduction in race days and its inevitable impact on handle always sparks concern, the decision to work in partnership with Colonial Downs and not compete with the Virginia-based track in July and August is being seen as a net positive. And once Pimlico becomes the year-round racing facility, the possibility of hosting a turf meet at bucolic Fair Hill is among several options on the table.
“They made a tremendous decision not to compete with Colonial. It’s too hard for these racetracks to continue to fill races year-round, there aren’t enough horses” said trainer Graham Motion, a Hall of Fame finalist who has been based in Maryland the entirety of his career. “And I think one thing that could fall into place is, it’s going to be tough having year-round racing on the Pimlico turf course so we need to see if we can evolve Fair Hill somehow where we now have a turf course that is on the verge of being reopened. That is something where we could have a Kentucky Downs type meet there.
“Maryland has always been my core. I started in Maryland, I’m based in Maryland, the Maryland tracks have always been where I want to run. So, I think the upward trajectory is encouraging,” Motion continued. “So much of it is still up in the air…but we have two more years. I think it being run by horsemen who really do have racing in their best interest, I think that is going to be a big positive.”
If there is a linchpin behind the progress already made and the advancements in the pipeline for Maryland racing it is the fact the industry has garnered crucial support from those in the legislature. Such a positive relationship has already played out in states like Kentucky and New York, both of which offer some of the strongest year-round circuits in the sport.
If all goes as expected the next few years, the refurbished Pimlico structure will once again hold added symbolism – this time of what strengthened bonds can achieve.
“I think anytime you have a state like Maryland that steps up and invests the type of money that they are going to in the new facility, in the training center, in creating an authority to oversee racing…that sends a message to the patrons to say, you know, we care about racing. We care about the industry and we're going to be behind it,” Knauf said. “Everything has been incredibly positive since I’ve been here. The horsemen are energized, the breeders are energized, and hopefully with the new facility we can pave a new path.
“Things are constantly changing, and we’ll have to adapt to whatever that means. But it’s very exciting for me personally and very exciting for the industry. It will be fun to see how it all evolves.”
Kentucky Oaks 2025 owners - Kristian Villante, Kyle Zorn, Travis Durr of Legion Racing with Drexel Hill
The three musketeers of Legion Racing, Kristian Villante, Kyle Zorn and Travis Durr, are on quite a tear. Last year, their Honor Marie finished second in the Louisiana Derby, then competed in the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont Stakes and the Travers Stakes, finishing eighth, fourth and eighth. This year, their filly Drexel Hill has them primed for the Kentucky Oaks off a victory in the $200,000 Busher Invitational at Aqueduct, March 1st.
Considering they started Legion Bloodstock, their full-service bloodstock agency, only four years ago, it’s rather amazing.
“I think, truthfully, why we’ve been very successful is that we all see eye to eye,” Villante said. “There are no egos. Just one team. The people we have assembled all kind of share the same vision. We all see eye-to-eye. We’re all doing this because we love it. It’s just a belief in ourselves. Everyone’s able to feed off each other and build off each other. Myself, Travis and Kyle had been very good friends before we started Legion, so it’s like three brothers.”
Or three musketeers.
“It’s very easy,” Villante continued. “It’s fun to do every day. We’re always on the same page. We can kind of make our own little footprint and prove ourselves.”
They chose another friend, a young trainer who just went out on his own, to lead them, and Whit Beckham has delivered, training both Honor Marie and Drexel Hill. Beckman worked for Todd Pletcher, Eoin Harty and Chad Brown before going on his own in 2022. “I think we had all this confidence knowing Whit,”
Villante said. “He’s done a great job building in the last two years; the passion he has for it; the horsemanship second to none. He just has a way with all these horses. She (Drexel Hill) is a prime example of that.”
Beckman is enjoying working with his friends at Legion: “I’ve known Kristian and Kyle for the last 15 years. Me and Kyle actually grew up together in Louisville and went to the same high school. I worked with Kristian for Todd Pletcher, so we became pretty good friends back in the day. Travis, he’s been selling horses for so long and has a training center in South Carolina. So he really has a good feel for buying a young horse. Kyle is as sharp as the other two. Kristian always said, `If you go on your own, we’ll make sure you get a barn full of good horses.’ So they made good on their promise. We’ve had a lot of luck together. They’re all super sharp horseman.”
Durr has certainly made a huge difference in Beckman’s stable, sending him Simply Joking, a three-year-old filly who won two stakes and finished second in the Gr. 2 Fantasy Stakes, and three-year-old colt Flying Mohawk, who was second in the Gr. 3 Jeff Ruby. Neither are owned by Legion.
Durr’s interest in horses traces back to his grandfather and father, who both raced Quarter Horses: “We always had horses. We used to go to Texas, Delta Downs. I started riding at the bush tracks.”
At the age of 12, he rode races on bush tracks in Georgia and South and North Carolina. As his family transitioned to Thoroughbreds, Durr began breaking young horses for his father and grandfather.
When his father died in 1995, Durr took over the family business. He began breaking horses in St. George, South Carolina, for local clients in 2007. He then joined the Webb Carroll Training Center in Matthews, South Carolina. In October, 2016, Durr and his wife Ashley then purchased the training center from Carroll.
“Time has flown by,” Durr said. “Me and Kristian have been buddies for a while, working with me with Webb. I started buying horses for the training center for myself. We’d look at horses together. We liked the same type of horses. We started the racing groups based on me and Kristian buying yearlings at Keeneland for $20,000 and it was tough.”
Now they spend more, but not a lot more. Honor Marie cost $40,000; Drexel Hill $50,000. “Me and Kristian talk four times a day,” Durr said. “We’re pretty good buddies. We all work together. It still doesn’t feel like a job a lot of days. We still get to enjoy what we do.”
Zorn also traces his love of racing back to his grandparents: “From the time I was ready to walk, two or three years old. I just loved it. Everybody had their favorite jockey: Patty Cooksey and Pat Day and Jerry Bailey. I still have signed goggles. The track was always a fun place to go.”
Zorn worked at a training center, then for trainer Pat Byrne, eventually becoming his assistant trainer. Then Zorn helped Maribeth Sandford, the owner of Take Charge Indy, when her husband passed away from cancer: “Maribeth was left with all the pieces. She needed help and I took a job helping her. That’s how I met Travis Durr. We became friends right away. And through Travis, I met Kristian. I was good friends with Whit. We’ve been very blessed.”
Villante grew up in Philadelphia: “I just kind of always loved horses in general, not necessarily horse racing. My dad [Joe] had a friend, Scott Lake. I was 12 or 13. I went to Parx. They’re amazing animals to be around. Scott took me under his wing. Did I have any idea of what I was going to do this? No.”
He did after working for Todd Pletcher and meeting Beckman: “We had very similar personalities. We became friends and it kind of grew.”
Still. One for all and all for one.
Triple Crown 2025 contender owners - Brian Coelho and John Bellinger (BC Stables) - American Promise
A small favor can go a long way. Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas got a call from a veterinarian he’s friends with, Dr. Charles Graham, asking if Lukas could get a couple of his friends, Brian Coelho and John Bellinger, to attend and watch the Kentucky Derby. “They wanted to go to the Derby, and I accommodated them,” Lukas said. “They had a great time. They said someday they’d like to get into racing in a few years. Then John called me one day and said, 'we are ready to jump in.’ And they did really get serious about it.”
They went to the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling Sale and spent major money buying yearlings. One of them, Just Steel, a $500,000 purchase, ran second in the 2024 Gr. 1 Arkansas Derby and finished 17th in the G.1 Kentucky Derby, Lukas’ first Derby starter since 2018. Just Steel then finished fifth in the Gr. 1 Preakness Stakes despite injuring himself. He has since recovered and is back racing.
This year, BC Stables are going back to the Run for the Roses with American Promise, a $750,000 Keeneland September Yearling purchase who was a dominant victor of the $500,000 Virginia Derby.
In 2021, Lukas’ horses earned just under $1.4 million. They jumped up to $4.1 million in 2022, $4.5 million in 2023 and just under $5.5 million last year.
When approached by Bellinger and Coelho, Lukas paused: “I thought, I’m going to be 87 (in 2022) that summer. I think maybe they ought to go with a younger guy. But I asked them how they felt about that and they were perfectly comfortable with that.”
With two Derby starters in two years, how comfortable do you think they are now? “Wayne’s devoted a lot of time to us,” Coelho said. “Just the time spent with Wayne the last few years talking, I’ve learned a tremendous amount about the industry and him as a person. He has a great mind for horses. Understands their physical characteristics and their minds. They’ve got a lot of good people on the team.”
Bellinger said, “We have about 30 horses, all with Wayne. We’re committed to Wayne. He’s committed to us. It’s worked well. Wayne is an incredible charmer. He’s a salesman, and he’s an optimist and just a good guy.”
Brian Coelho and John Bellinger had a business relationship well before they plunged into horse racing as partners. Coelho is the president and CEO of the family-owned Coelho Meat Company in Hanford, California. “In 1981, my father started Coelho Meat Company with three employees, processing 15 head of cattle a day,” Coelho wrote on the company’s website. “From our humble beginning, we have not forgotten our core principle of `Excellence Beyond Expectation.’”
Coelho explained, “Success is attributed to slow growth, hard work and diligence. Being conservative over the years. Continue to invest back in the business. We’ve acquired two more businesses in the last six years. We process 4,500 cattle a day with 3,000 employees. John was in the laboratory business, a lot of food testing for meat companies. That’s how I got to know John and his wife.”
Bellinger is based in San Antonio, Texas, and is on the Board of Regents at Texas A & M. He received the Texas A & M Outstanding Alumnus of Animal Science and was inducted into the U.S. Meat Industry Hall of Fame in 2022. He has owned several companies: “Brian was a customer of our Food Safety Net Services for testing food products. We did his testing and his auditing. That’s how I met Brian 15 years ago. We started the company in 1994, my wife Gina and I. We sold it in July, 2021. I stayed on as CEO.”
Growing up on a farm, Bellinger has always had a fondness for horses. He wanted in on Thoroughbreds, and called Coelho, who agreed to become partners.
Not too many years later, they were doing the walkover in the 2024 Kentucky Derby. “It was emotionally inspiring,” Coelho said. “One of the most enjoyable experiences.”
Bellinger agreed: “It’s phenomenal. We were blessed to be in the Derby. A lot of people say, `once in a lifetime.’”
This first Saturday in May, it will be twice in two years. And Lukas has a strong feeling about American Promise: “He’s a May baby. All those three-year-olds come around in the spring when you’re getting them ready for those Triple Crown type races. He’s 17 hands and a big-framed horse. I was telling my wife this morning, every day I fool with this horse, he’s moving in the right direction. He’s absolutely getting his act together. I told Brian and John over two months ago, `I think he’s absolutely going to take us where we want to go. And yet, you have to see it, and in Virginia, we did.”
The bond between Coelho and Bellinger remains strong. Coelho and his wife Stacy’s two daughters, Emma and Avery, both attend Texas A & M. “They were both looking for a good agricultural school,” Coelho said. “They got a nudge from John.”
Bellinger said this of their relationship: “It’s just great. Partners can go one way or another. Brian and I work well together. No disagreements. I don’t know that either one of us would have bought the quality of horses that we did if we bought separately.”
Kentucky Oaks 2025 owners - Mike Gatsas (Gatsas Stables) - Five G
Family has always been paramount to Mike Gatsas, in his family business and his family’s passion in horse racing. “Family is super important to him,” his son, Matthew, said.
Now, their family’s home-New York-bred Five G, named to honor Gatsas’ five grandchildren, will be their first starter in the Gr. 1 Kentucky Oaks. The fact that Five G is a daughter of their star runner Vekoma makes it even sweeter.
Matthew is the Vice-President of Trivantus, a payroll service/employee benefits/human resource administration company his father founded in New Hampshire in 2003. He’s partnered with his brother-in-law Danny Casey.
Matthew named Vekoma, a son of Candy Ride out of Mona de Momma by Speightstown, a horse Gatsas partnered with Randy Hill: “We were trying a bunch of names. So many got rejected. Our family was going to Disney World for the first time. There’s a big roller coaster there named Vekoma, made by Expedition Everest. I just thought it was a cool name. His dad was Candy Ride. Everybody loved it.”
The fact that Vekoma turned into a multiple Gr. 1 stakes winner and now a superstar stallion didn’t hurt.
Vekoma finished 12th in the 2019 Kentucky Derby, one of his rare losses. He won six of his seven other starts, including the Gr. 1 Carter Handicap and the Gr. 1 Metropolitan, and earned $1,245,525.
Then Vekoma became the leading 2024 first-crop sire, standing this year for $35,000 at Spendthrift Farm.
Mike Gatsas bred his Quality Road mare Triumphant to Vekoma and was rewarded with Five G, who followed a dismal debut – seventh by 22 lengths – with a victory and second on grass, a nine-length victory in the $150,000 Cash Run Stakes, a fine second to Quietside in the Gr. 3 Honeybee Handicap and a 2 ¼ length score in the Gr. 2 Gulfstream Park Oaks. “It’s great we get to share it as a family,” Matthew said.
That’s the way Gatsas intended it to be. Asked about his highlight participating in the 2019 Kentucky Derby, he replied, “Being there with my whole family, my wife, my kids, my grandchildren. That’s how we got started, having something the family could do.”
Well before he bought his first horse in 1998, Gatsas let his intention to buy a Thoroughbred known. “It was 100 years ago when I was a little kid,” Matthew said. “We had been at Lake George with another family. We were sitting at the dinner table. The story goes that somebody offered them a tip on a horse that was running. I was very young. We had to go to Saratoga. Dad said to one of his friends: `I want a horse that runs at Saratoga.’”
When he was a teenager, Matthew remembers trips to Rockingham Park, not far from their New Hampshire home: “We’d go every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It seemed like we went all the time.”
In 1998, his father purchased two horses: a sleek, gray New York-bred gelding named Gander and Shadow Caster. Gander went on to be 2000 New York-bred Horse of the Year. He won 15 of his 60 starts, including six stakes, the biggest being the 2001 Gr. 2 Meadowlands Cup. He finished second in the 2000 Gr. 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup and his earnings of more than $1.8 million are still 13th all-time among New York-breds. Shadow Caster was no slouch, making nearly a half a million thanks to eight victories in 47 starts. Gatsas’ brother Ted, a former state senator and mayor of Manchester, was his partner.
Asked about Gander, Gatsas said, “Being new to the game, my trainer, Charlie Assimakopuolos thought it was a great opportunity to get a New York-bred. I was sold on the program ever since. It’s a phenomenal program.”
Gander paved the way for future success. “Gander is the one who got us started,” Matthew said. “Probably, he’s the reason we’re still in the game. I don’t think a lot of people have that luck early on.”
Racing as Sovereign Stable, the Gatsas family had more luck with Negligee, a two-year-old filly who gave them their first Gr. 1 victory when she took the 2009 Alcibiades.
Fortuitous seating at Saratoga led Gatsas to partner up with Randy Hill, who races as R. A. Hill Stables, on Vekoma. Hill’s box was right behind Gatsas’: “We met, and I said, `what do you think if we split some horses?’ He said, `sure.’ We really got to like each other. We’re really having fun with these horses.”
Gatsas guesses he now owns 40 Thoroughbreds, many in partnership with Randy Hill and others. Gatsas uses trainers George Weaver, John Terranova, Danny Gargan and Ricky Dutrow.
“We don’t have a big stable, but we’ve been very blessed,” Gatsas said. “George has done a great job with this filly. I’m pleased to be associated with George and his wife Cindy. We’re very blessed to have George as a trainer.”
Matthew said, “We’ve been in the business a long time. I’m very much involved in it. I love the sport. There’s no doubt I got that from my dad. My wife Celia, she’s from the Saratoga area and she enjoys the races. Now my kids, Calla and Matthew, are picking it up from me.
“We all made it to Keeneland when Vekoma won the Blue Grass. Then we went on to Louisville. It was pretty awesome. The kids were too young to enjoy it, but they did come. I think all five of them (grandchildren) are super excited for this (the Kentucky Oaks). It’s going to be pretty cool.”